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VOLUME TEN, NUMBER THREE, NOVEMBER 2006 Editor: Ken Ward Managing Editor: Raymond Cox. Associate Editors: Peter Palmer, Crawford Howie, Nicholas Attfield
In this issue:
Biennial Conference .. page 2
Concert Reviews…pages 3-13
CD reviews … page 14
Thematic and Tonal Unity in Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony by Paul Dawson-Bowling… page 19
Bruckner in the Academy by Raymond Rice…page 26
Bruckner Scores: Secular Vocal Music…page 31
Letters from Ian Beresford Gleaves, Aart van der Wal and Ian Gray…page 36
A performance of a revised completion of the Ninth by William Carragan…page 40
Thanks to Holger Grintz for sending a colour print of this caricature by Copyright in all pieces remains with Matthias Richter, and to the artist for permission to publish this small the author. Silhouette by Otto Böhler. greyscale copy. It shows Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs indicating the Profile and bow-tie on pages 17 & 35 existing sources for the Ninth that should be respected; and Peter Jan by Michael Felmingham Views Marthé indicating Bruckner as an angel above the clouds as the source expressed by contributors to The for his newly composed finale for the Ninth. You can obtain a copy of Bruckner Journal are not necessarily this print in A3 format from John Berky at www.abruckner.com, 21 Juniper Road, Windsor, CT 06095 - USA for $24.95 those of the editors. 2
FIFTH BRUCKNER JOURNAL READERS BIENNIAL CONFERENCE 2007
‘Mystery in the Music of Anton Bruckner’
The conference will be held in Birmingham on Saturday 21 April, 9.30 for 10 am - 5pm With an informal meeting on the Friday evening at 7 pm The venue is Carrs Lane Centre, Carrs Lane, Birmingham 0121 643 6151
Speakers will include Nicholas Attfield, William Carragan, Dermot Gault, Paul Hawkshaw, Julian Horton, Crawford Howie, Ben Korstvedt and Ken Ward.
The venue is very conveniently situated in the city centre. It is directly opposite Moor Street Station (Chiltern Railways from London Marylebone) and a short walk from New Street Station (Virgin Trains from London Euston, and places from the north, south and east of England). The Digbeth Coach Station is a few minutes walk away, and there is a car park near the venue, across the road, but not at the venue itself.
The Conference fee is £25.
If you would like to attend please complete and return the booking form as soon as you can conveniently do so, and at the latest by the end of January, as it is necessary to know the number likely to attend. Readers who book for the Conference will find a map enclosed with the March issue of The Bruckner Journal.
A buffet lunch is available on Saturday consisting of a selection of sandwiches with salad garnish, savouries, mini or fresh creams or Danish pastries, or orange juice and mineral water. Buffets have to be ordered on the booking form. For those who do not wish to have the buffet lunch there is a 700 seat restaurant facility, The Loft, a three or four minutes walk away on the top floor of The Pavilions shopping centre. Here there are various choices of different food outlets. This facility closes at 5.30pm, but other restaurants are available in the area, and the Britannia hotel restaurant is open from 7 pm. On Friday evening the room is available from 6 pm, so feel free to arrive any time after then. The session will start at 7 pm.
For those seeking accommodation the two nearest recommended hotels are also within a few minutes walk from the venue, in New Street. Britannia Hotel 044(0)121 6313331. www.britanniahotels.com. (First choice); Burlington Hotel 044(0)121 6331716. www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk. It is highly recommended that you book your accommodation as soon as possible, as there might be demand for these hotels that particular weekend, depending on other events taking place in the region. Further hotels in or near to the city can be accessed via www.birmingham.co.uk . Telephone numbers 044(0)121 7046130 (Visitor Information Centre) and 044(0)121 6432514 (Birmingham Convention and Visitor Bureau) may also be helpful. Those not requiring accommodation should find it possible to arrive by train in Birmingham from many places in the country in time for the start of the Conference.
We hope you will be able to join us for an interesting and stimulating event, which also offers readers the opportunity to meet with one another. If you need further information please contact Raymond Cox, or Crawford Howie in respect of speakers and the format of the day. Anyone unable to book until nearer the day should inquire first to Raymond Cox to ensure there is still space available.
Raymond Cox, 4 Lulworth Close, Halesowen, B63 2UJ - 044(0)1384 566383
Concert Reviews
VIENNA - Musikverein, Groβe Saal - 5 May, 2006 Bruckner - Symphony No.7 Vienna Symphony Orchestra - Herbert Blomstedt
For me, Bruckner is one of those composers whose music “plays itself.” The fashion for performing it so slowly that one is painfully aware of every bar line, that phrases become static and never “arrive”, makes for uninspiring listening and is unmusical. I feel that the preoccupation with Bruckner and the church, with his idiosyncrasies, with this version or that, outweighs the fact that the music was written to be performed and listened to. It takes a conductor who can balance the emotional with the technical, and who “loves” the MUSIC, to present an uplifting performance. Herbert Blomstedt, conducting without a score, did just that with the musicians of the VSO.
Yes….the first movement was slow, but it moved - elegant, stately by turn - through beautifully shaped phrases up to and away from their climaxes. The occasional slight increases in speed which the conductor allowed came naturally, almost imperceptibly. Pauses were mere breaths. The movement evolved into a musically coherent whole.
It was hard to realise that the second movement was being played more slowly that the first, for it never stalled, dragged, or lost its way. Blomstedt built it and moulded it into a fine sculpture, yet it was alive with glorious crescendi and unbelievable diminuendi. As the three-note rising scale motif in the brass climbed, dropped back to rise ever higher through all those distant keys building up to the final big climax, he instilled an air of expectancy, then unleashed the descending triplets in the strings in exultation. It was awe-inspiring.
In the third movement we met Bruckner the Rustic - a side of his character which I feel is all too often ignored. Here we had a lively tempo, the music moving with an Austrian lilt - and Blomstedt with it. I like to see a conductor unashamed to move with the music, as well as being in permanent eye-contact with his players.
The Finale left nothing else to be said! It was played with dash and panache. The orchestral forces were well under control for there was always that little bit extra available when Blomstedt called for it.
I have heard the VSO play Bruckner a number of times; I believe they are indeed a Bruckner Orchestra, for they have a natural rich, full, round timbre. There was glorious warm playing from every department, particularly from the violas and cellos. It was an uncontrived, sincere performance, lovingly played, with conductor and orchestra as one. I shall remember it for being as close to perfect as it is possible to be.
I still believe that these great symphonies are not at their best in the concert hall. Bruckner did not write for the orchestra as though it were a great organ, but I am sure that as he composed, he heard the orchestral sound full of overtones in the brass reverberating round some vast cathedral or Kloster.
Florence Bishop
EDINBURGH - INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2006. USHER HALL. Lloyds TSB Scotland Concerts – 15th August to 1st September 2006 Bruckner Symphonies 1 - 9 Various Orchestras and Conductors.
In his final year as Director of the Edinburgh Festival Sir Brian McMaster programmed all the Bruckner symphonies over a three week period featuring six orchestras and 9 conductors. Only an International Festival could schedule all the symphonies in such a concentrated period of time and this 4 rare event had Bruckner lovers in an excited state. We give much thanks to Sir Brian McMaster for serving the Bruckner cause so well during his 15 years tenure.
The excellent programme book was written by Michael Steinberg, and in a short quotation from the poet Denise Levertov, he found the words to express Bruckner’s essence.
Angels with heavy wings Weathering the storm wracked air, Listing heavenward.
The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo gave a blazing performance of the rarely heard 1st symphony. All sections of the orchestra were technically secure and I can’t imagine the work being performed better. Why is this symphony so neglected?
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov gave us the 2nd symphony. Again we heard some excellent orchestral playing and Volkov handled this largely neglected symphony, with so many pre-echoes of Bruckner’s later style, confidently.
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Günther Herbig gave us the 3rd symphony and I felt this was one of the highlights of the cycle. It was excellently played and conducted by Herbig, without a score, which always gives me added confidence.
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra returned to play the 4th symphony under their principal conductor Stéphane Denève in a rarely heard version (Bruckner-Schalk-Lowe revision 1886-7[This is the edition first performed in 1888, discussed by Benjamin Korstvedt in The Bruckner Journal, Vol.10, no.2, March 2006]). This version, according to the programme was favoured by Knappertsbusch, and Stéphane Denève praises the ‘transparent orchestration’. This certainly seemed a lighter 4th with chamber-music-like delicacy in the Andante which I have never experienced before. The principal horn player was outstanding throughout the whole symphony.
The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra appeared for a single evening with conductor Ingo Metzmacher in the 5th symphony. Unfortunately I think this was the poorest performance of the cycle. I have heard Metzmacher conduct the 6th and was disappointed by his rushed performance. The opening of the 5th was marred by poor orchestral playing, especially in the brass section, and there just didn’t seem to be enough weight to the whole orchestral sound. Does Metzmacher really believe in this piece?*
The 6th symphony was played by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Donald Runnicles. Again I found this a less than satisfactory performance. I’m used to Klemperer and Wand in this piece and I’m afraid Runnicles conducted like he had a plane to catch. Like his performances of Wagner and Mahler Runnicles finds much drama in what he conducts and while there were many exciting moments in this performance I think there is more to this strange symphony than frenzy and high drama.
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra returned again with the 7th symphony under Claus Peter Flor, very much a safe pair of hands where Bruckner is concerned. Conducting without a score Flor gave a perfectly paced account of this work.
The Philharmonia under the remarkable Herbert Blomstedt brought the 8th symphony. This was perhaps not the most profound 8th I will hear but Blomstedt in his undemonstrative way gave a deeply felt reading of this massive masterpiece.
Finally, the BBC Symphony under Jiří Bělohlávek flew up from the London Proms to repeat the 9th symphony. This was another straightforward and deeply felt performance. In particular 5
Bělohlávek took great care over the coda where we hear fragments of the 7th and 8th symphonies, it was very, very moving. Alan Munro [*Raymond Cox, on the other hand, hearing this performance of the 5th symphony – minus the opening 14 bars as broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 19th September – found it to be one of the best performances he had ever heard.]
Other reviews from the Edinburgh cycle: These are edited versions of reviews by Douglas Cooksey, first published at www.classicalsource.com and are published with their kind permission.
Symphony No.3 [1889] Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Herbig, 19/08/2006 It could be argued that Günther Herbig conducted the least satisfactory of the three (at least) versions of Bruckner’s Third Symphony, the one from 1889, which Leopold Nowak edited, that truncates the work and makes it more conventional (certainly in relation to the outsize and craggy first version from 1873 that conductors such as Inbal, Tintner, Blomstedt and Nott have made so convincing). It was a pity that this ‘late’ concert was sparsely attended, not least because Günther Herbig (born in 1931) is such a fine Bruckner conductor, able to build long paragraphs and draw rich sounds from the strings. He conducted Bruckner 3 from memory and obviously knew every nook and cranny of it, rendering the dance-music of the Trio as delightfully gemütlich and the polka in the finale as rather gentle and very effective as such. The actual execution of the work, however, left a good deal to the imagination; there were miscalculations and initially the brass was frequently too loud, especially so given the less-than-full hall, although, by the finale, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra was playing more comfortably within itself, and if wind-tuning frequently left a great deal to be desired, one also sensed a real rapport between the orchestra and conductor. Given more rehearsal time, Herbig’s unostentatious musicianship would greatly benefit this orchestra, its members warmly applauding him at the close.
Symphony No.4 [Ed. first performed 1888 - Bruckner, Schalk, Löwe], Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Denève - 22/08/06 The concert of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony proved to be rather important for it marked the Festival’s debut of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and its music director Stéphane Denève and gave a now-rare opportunity to hear the 1886-7 revision made by Bruckner with the heavy involvement of Franz Schalk and Ferdinand Löwe, the version in general use prior to the Second World War. I first got to know this wonderful music 50 years ago from a set of 78s of the Schalk-Löwe version conducted by Karl Böhm and first heard the symphony live in the Usher Hall with the (pre- Royal) Scottish National Orchestra under the great Jascha Horenstein. In those days Bruckner performances were few and generally sparsely attended, so – having first bribed twenty-five University friends with a free meal at my flat – I then took them to the performance. Later when Jascha (I had the good fortune to know him) heard that I had fed and paid for part of the audience to come and hear him conduct Bruckner he was vastly amused. Happily on this current occasion the Usher Hall was considerably more full. … Denève clearly believes passionately in [this edition] on purely musical grounds and in this radiant performance made the strongest possible case for it. Given a performance of this conviction, the 36-bar cut in the finale and the foreshortening of the scherzo seemed not to matter. By comparison with its slightly rough-and-ready playing of Bruckner 3 for Herbig a few nights previously, the RSNO was a band transformed for its new chief. Having felt a certain disappointment with this team’s Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique at the Proms, it was hugely gratifying to hear them do full justice to the music with warm, focussed string playing, an excellent first horn in David McLenaghan, secure wind-playing and notably mellow brass. This was the quietest, least hectoring Bruckner heard in a long time with Denève teasing out many moments of gentleness and frequently holding the music on the finest thread. The viola’s long, unwinding threnody in the slow movement was especially memorable. Set against these restrained dynamic levels, the great climaxes 6 reared up with quite exceptional power, the endings of the first and last movements achieving an overwhelming impact.
Symphony No.8 [1890, Nowak] Philharmonia Orchestra, Blomstedt, 30/8/06, 2006 For many lovers of Bruckner’s music, the Eighth Symphony represents his most completely achieved work. (Yet, his music has taken time to make its mark; in 1964 I heard the very belated Scottish premiere of this work, conducted by Jascha Horenstein, and which came at the end of a day dominated by Winston Churchill's funeral.) … Whatever the rights and wrongs [Haas v. Nowak, ed] (but it should be noted that when Blomstedt conducted this work with the Bamberg Symphony recently, he seems to have used Haas’s edition), such matters were put aside given the splendour that the conductor offered on this occasion. It would be easy to find fault with certain details of execution – the first horn had a torrid time with his exposed first movement solo – but this was a performance that grew in stature and conviction with every bar. It also marked a potentially important relationship between the Philharmonia and the still-youthful 79-year-old Blomstedt. The Orchestra has always been at its best in core Austro-German repertoire in which the warmth and balance of its string sections and cultivated polish of the woodwinds pay particular dividends. Christoph von Dohnányi has nurtured these qualities over his years with the Philharmonia; and Blomstedt possesses the sort of unostentatious authority in core repertoire that chimes with the Philharmonia's essential characteristics; and on this occasion the musicians honoured him with playing of rare commitment. Yes, there were some miscalculations. The work’s very opening was scarcely pp as marked, especially from the horns, and in the first movement the absence of real pianissimo was also matched by some over-emphatic fffs, which were made worse by the less-than-full house. However, even from the outset there were real compensations. This was Bruckner – conducted from memory – which moved with real certainty, the joins between paragraphs handled with particular subtlety (to wit the descending cello line that ushers in the violins’ second theme), and there was real ferocity, too, at the first movement’s granitic climax. By the scherzo the actual playing had settled down, the repetitions allowed to unfold naturally without over-emphasis and the harp-laden trio – Bruckner’s request for three of them being acknowledged – providing moments of purest magic. Best of all though were the Adagio and finale. The slow movement was taken very spaciously and was wonderfully sustained, the Philharmonia’s radiant strings of particular benefit here, with the epilogue ‘sung’ in what seemed like an infinitely-extended breath. The finale was delivered with a forward-moving certainty that made light of what can, in other hands, seem like longeurs. By the time the final peroration, with its combination of themes from the previous movements, was arrived at, Blomstedt unleashed an absolute torrent of sound. Ultimately there could be little doubt that this performance did Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony something like full justice. Douglas Cooksey
Tim Ashley in The Guardian, 17th August, had this to say about Sakari Oramo’s performance of the 1st Symphony with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra: “Even though Bruckner’s First is hardly a young man’s work - he was 40 when he wrote it - it is hampered by a reputation for stylistic anonymity. “It could be by anyone,” is a frequent critical comment. Oramo’s performance - magisterially played and earning an ovation that seemed to go on forever - proved that it could, in fact, be by no one but Bruckner, and that it contains, albeit in embryonic form, the germinating ideas that eventually came to fruition in his later works. Phenomenal stuff, every glorious second of it.”
ST. FLORIAN Stiftsbasilika - 18th August 2006 Bruckner – Symphony No 9 in D minor, “Dem Lieben Gott”, with a newly-composed Finale by Peter Jan Marthé. European Philharmonic Orchestra / Peter Jan Marthé
A Modern Bruckner Vision in St Florian
When I listen to Harnoncourt’s recording of the fragments of the finale to the Ninth Symphony (BMG Classics 2003) I am puzzled, inspired and reassured, in turn or all together. Having 7 known the first three movements since I was a young man I am surprised: they seem to be random and unconnected - perhaps leading beyond what one normally calls music. That they are the music of a composer coming to terms with his imminent death is a commonplace. But what would a death-approaching (Brucknerian) music sound like? Are these fragments indeed thanatographic? They present us with questions that have no definitive answer. We assume, however, that Bruckner’s answers (had he completed the work) would have been, at the very least, individual and beyond the ordinary, maybe even, paradoxically, non-answers.
Bruckner wasn’t Schubert, who died far too young and was far too talented. Schubert never sounds strange, even in his strangest songs. Bruckner sounds strange even in his Masses. Bruckner invents, as is the improviser’s privilege, sound-complexes (complexes of motivic, harmonic and rhythmic energy) which he manipulates in such a way (Handwerk!) that they continue for extended periods of time. Clearly it’s the manipulation that counts. In his symphonies (especially from No. III onwards) the three themes (or thematic groups) aren’t the events which cause the flow of energy, even retroactively, but simply points of coalescence within it. Although they mark the flow, its cause is an elusive “something else”. By the time of the Ninth Symphony (1887-1896) Bruckner had so freed-up his musical consciousness, his musical canals, so to speak - remember that this is the era of the steam engine - that his music had more to do with the dream-world than the everyday one, more in common with Debussy’s Jeux (with its fourteen interlocking and interacting ideas) than sonata form, even its three-themed version.
We imagine the Ninth to be forever striving heavenwards. But does it? The ii7→I progression near the end of the E major Adagio, rather than being a heavenly moment, feels more like slipping into a warm bath, despite the cunning threefold climax structure of the whole movement. Not long after Bruckner’s death humanity (Brucknerians) realised that as a finale the Te Deum wasn’t going to work - and for many years the three movements have sufficed, wish-fulfilment replacing reality, (leaving us, alas, with a sort of pseudo-heaven). But time is our ally and for a couple of decades ideas of a real ‘completion’ have been in the air. Musicologists, especially, have worked with what is ‘known’, and, like detectives, have speculated, and deduced what might - or could be reasonably said to - have happened, had Bruckner died later than he did.
So back to the fragments. Do we really begin our post-Adagio heavenly existence with a pianissimo timpani roll on G§, a pitch whose structural role, so far, has been negligible (Samale Cohrs 2005 changes it to an A§), and then follow it with the most unstable theme Bruckner ever thought up? Or is this finale really depicting an ironic heaven, a sort of Brucknerian Mahler 4th? Of course not. And Peter Jan Marthé doesn’t think so either. In his realisation the previous E major close was indeed more of a spiritual warm bath, or rather ‘a reconciliation with oneself’ (programme note). There is still much work to be done and, to begin our spiritual journey, we find ourselves back on dry land, with a bump, a timpani roll, a G§ and a triple sforzando. This is the straightforward brutal introduction to a straightforward and brutally simple formal plan: “Exposition with three themes, development with integral fugue, recapitulation and coda. Basta!” (Marthé, programme note). Actually we can relax. Marthé composes an introduction to the ‘unstable’ first theme that isn’t unstable at all - it has direction and a distinct purpose. The fragments aren’t going to be followed, they are going to be used. We can relax, also, because we are in the hands of a conductor/composer who has just shown his credentials by giving a more than adequate performance of the first three movements. In the magnificent acoustic of the St Florian Basilika (luckily heard from the Organ Emporium) we hear the music with intimate clarity; and the surges of volume speak without harshness. Marthé knows the acoustic and uses it well. He conducts ‘deeply’, at times with an oceanic sway. Indeed, he has the physical presence of a ship’s captain. I was surprised, yet again, by the newness of the symphony, with Marthé raising the importance of these ‘other voices’, the Nebenstimmen. It’s the sound-complex, not the tonality, which brings out the music’s objectivity. Marthé is able, too, to underline the music’s metric counterweights - a subtle method Bruckner has of not just chugging along. This is especially effective in the Scherzo, where he highlights the interplay of dark and light forces. 8
The unsettling discontinuity of the fragments (heaven probably doesn’t exist) is now replaced by a problem: given that heaven does exist, will we ever be able to get there? Luckily for us, Marthé has done his mythological homework; although we may at the end, as one journalist did, throw up our hands in disbelief, we are surely to be greeted at the pearly gates with a welcoming handshake. Marthé does indeed take us on a journey, both ‘outwards’ and ‘upwards’.
During this grand vision I felt a few things were being lost. I missed a sense of real complexity in the Brucknerian sound- complexes (in these parts newly composed by Marthé - although his massive extension of the fugue is an exception). Likewise I missed the continuation and intensification of the symphony’s semitone dialectic (D/Eb first movt., C#/D second movt., B/C, EF#/EbF§ Adagio) implied in the fragments. He never, however, falls into the trap of easy pastiche; and much of what he composes is to good effect. At two crucial points (a transition from the first to Bruckner’s welcoming handshake greets visitors to St Florian second theme groups) he turns to Alpine air and Brucknertage, August 2006 not to the Himalayan air of the programme note: Mahlerian cowbells are heard - admittedly on the trumpets. In the coda Marthé, characteristically, includes everything.
The St Florian Brucknertage should be congratulated for making available to its public a vision of the finale far removed from that of the more mainstream Bruckner world. For we’ve been shown that mankind has more of a future than simply tieing up the past, however important that may also be. Keith Gifford Published in The London Review of Books, 5th October 2006, is a letter from Keith Gifford in response to a review by David Matthews of The Art of Fugue: Bach Fugues for the Keyboard 1715-50 by Joseph Kerman, that surveyed the use of the fugue in western music, but failed to mention Bruckner’s contribution. In his letter Keith Gifford comments, ‘Sechter’s most diligent pupil was Anton Bruckner, who wrote some of the most magnificent orchestral fugues in late Romantic music … On 18 August, as part of a new completion of his unfinished Ninth Symphony, Bruckner’s massive final fugue was performed to great effect in the St Florian Basilica near Linz.’
Ken Ward was also at St Florian for this event:
This was an extraordinary and controversial concert. It presents a more than usually difficult problem for the reviewer, and raises challenging editorial questions for The Bruckner Journal (see letter from Aart van der Wal on page 36). Readers will be aware of Peter Jan Marthé’s unusual stance as a conductor, and the unique view he takes of Bruckner symphonies, and of the Ninth in particular. He believes it to be an ‘archaic initiation ritual locked into music’, and that in composing this 4th movement he was acting on Bruckner’s command and worked as a pencil in Bruckner’s hand. Many people will find themselves at best baffled by such assertions, unable to take them at face-value and wondering if there is some other account of how this performance and this final movement were achieved, that is less challenging to normal rational thought; others will be totally and even cynically dismissive. Marthé’s disdain for conventional music-making and musicology is matched by a reciprocal disdain on the part of some musicologists, critics and Brucknerians. After all, what he’s 9 done with the 3rd Symphony makes the interventions of the Schalk brothers, Löwe et al pale seem trivial.
So there will be those who think that The Bruckner Journal should not take his work seriously, should ignore it, or even openly condemn it, but it seems to me that whatever you think of Marthé’s Bruckner project, nothing is to be gained by prejudgement and ignorance of it. The energy and sincerity he brings to the performance of Bruckner symphonies cannot be denied. (See Colin Anderson’s review of CD’s of symphonies 3 and 4, page 15), and the cycle he has been conducting in the course of the Brucknertage at St. Florian includes performances of considerable stature. So I approached it as best I could with a generous heart and an open mind. In preparation I spent some time listening to Harnoncourt’s performance of the Finale fragments, and studying John Phillip’s score, so that I would be better able to know what in this version of the Finale was as Bruckner had left the score in 1896, and how much is the result of Marthé’s role in the composition. Thanks to the kind assistance of Frau Margereta Pichler of Tourismusverband, St Florian, and Frau Isolde Dankelmaier, Orchestral Manager of the European Philharmonic Orchestra, I was enabled to hear the concert from the organ gallery, standing beside the console at which Bruckner himself had spent so many hours. So already for me this was a very special event.
Even after more than one hour and forty minutes music, the opening of the symphony remained unforgettable: the tremolo, the woodwind - and then the horn theme mysteriously filling the reverberant space of the church. It was absolute magic: the double-dotted rhythm, the minor third, the fifth, the second, the glorious gesture heavenwards and fall to prayerful cadence. Then, with the entry of the falling string motive that begins the climb to the first theme climax, the tempo was suddenly much slower, and remained so throughout the exposition. This had the effect of establishing the opening horn theme as an introduction or prelude, something which to some extent stood alone.
Marthé has an extraordinary way with tempi. To my ears each section seemed to have its own tempo, always slow but often just slightly different to that which preceded it. One would have thought that this would have led to incoherence, but in fact it all fell into place in the grand sweep of the movement, as though they were parts of a mosaic, each piece of individual character but nevertheless consistently forming the whole. Another achievement of the orchestra and conductor, especially admirable in a church acoustic, was to bring out many of the inner parts, so that themes were often experienced at more levels than are often available to the listener, this combined with quite a lush, polished orchestral sound. This first movement performance was especially strong, and there were many moments that had ones heart stopping, ones breath held. But two great shattering climaxes stand out in my memory, magnificently handled: the main theme fff falling octaves in the second part, and of course the coda with its fanfares and demonic energy.
Marthé insisted on a long pause, several minutes, between the first and second, and the second and third movements - following similar practice adopted in Munich by his teacher, Celibidache. Some may regard this as affectation, but I believe it to be essential if due weight is to be given to the gravity, the seriousness of what it is we do when we perform and listen to Bruckner. Too many performances have a glib, workaday, matter-of-factness about them; it is up to the conductor to ensure that the audience and performers are given the opportunity to feel that something important is taking place. It is Marthé’s contention that the intensity required for a Bruckner performance is too much to ask from professional musicians giving many concerts a week, and that the European Philharmonic, young people meeting up solely to do a short series of concerts consisting of a Bruckner symphony alone, is best positioned to create a performance worthy of the music.
The Scherzo was taken quite slowly: lumbering, inexorable, brutal - but goodness me, it was also a dance! The strange pizzicato theme, heavily accented on the first beat of each bar, set off down and up, up and down, as though it were in some grim game of ‘snakes and ladders’. Sandwiched between this the Trio seemed a bit overwhelmed and I was unable to take much from it.
The tempo of the Adagio was slow - but not magnificently slow like Giulini or the Munich Celibidache. Unfortunately a member of the audience was taken ill at the start of this movement, 10 collapsed to the floor and lay receiving first aid until the paramedics stretchered her out during Bruckner’s ‘Farewell to Life’. Whether it was the fact that the interaction between audience and orchestra was deflected by this, or merely that I was distracted, it seemed that the performance lost some concentration. Obviously, within the framework of a four movement 9th, the Adagio takes on the different significance of a middle movement and doesn’t aspire to the finality that three movement performances find necessary, but even allowing for this there seemed a lack of intensity in the first part. But come the build-up to the climax concentration was complete, the orchestra rose to full shattering power, the great dissonances blasting through the empty heights of the church nave, as though forcing a confrontation with the Unknowable at its most terrifying.
The coda wound down, (marvellous playing by the horns and strings here) the long held E major chord on horns, tubas and trombone delivered a temporary remission: there was peace. But instead of the several minutes quiet contemplation that occurred between the previous movements, Marthé launched, attacca, into his finale - and indeed, it was an attack: a fortississimo drum roll in G, followed by meandering pizzicato strings. And then fff, the drum roll repeated. I realised immediately that any relation to the score presented by John Phillips as Bruckner’s last known efforts at the finale was going to be at some remove. In a sense, this was a liberation: I was relieved of the task of trying to distinguish what was what, of determining how the philology and musicology were involved, and could place my full attention on this ‘newly composed’ work.
At the beginning it seemed scandalous, appalling, all wrong, but as it proceeded I was won over and it became a magnificent and coherent piece of work. That is not to say that it seemed to be echt Bruckner - indeed, there were passages more like Mahler, or ‘film-music’, and moments so over- the-top as to threaten to undermine its seriousness of purpose - but its extraordinary aspiration was always apparent, built on a formal structure that was secure and easily assimilated. The first theme group was fragmented (deliberately so: according to Marthé it expresses ‘the disintegration of illusory certainty’), dominated by the tritone, dotted rhythm and the falling octave motif from the first movement main theme. The second theme was much more closely related to how it appears in the Finale fragments, but seemed more lushly orchestrated. It wafted gently and mysteriously. The big chorale third theme was as powerful and glorious as one would expect. The Te Deum accompaniment motif introduced the development which was full of extraordinary moments. There seemed to be quotes from the 5th symphony. Most memorable was the fugue, powerfully orchestrated with trumpet fanfares all over the place. In the first part of the coda was a passage for solo cellos in which the Adagio’s main theme sounded like the Prelude to Tristan, and ultimately the symphony’s opening horn theme returned so taking us back to that special moment when it all began. The vast coda climbed by way of the ‘Non confundar’ theme from the Te Deum and the 7th Symphony rising sequentially. And then - no hint of ‘gilt nicht’ here - triangle and cymbal players stood up, and a blazing heaven was revealed, a wash of orchestral sound amongst which a variety of themes was heard, including one reminiscent of second movement Scherzo of the 8th.
So, what are we to make of this Finale? In conversation with my colleague, Keith Gifford, we agreed that to some extent it fitted the idea of how you might have imagined a Finale to the 9th would be - had you not been aware of the extraordinary, spare, strange, in places obsessive music Bruckner actually left when he died. This newly-composed Finale was vast, disturbing to begin with, but ultimately glorious, and it crowned the work very powerfully. I wouldn’t for a moment argue that it should take its place as THE Finale to Bruckner’s 9th; even less that it constitutes a rigorous philological and musicological reconstruction and completion - for that we must look to Samale, Mazzuca, Phillips and Cohrs and their fully documented solutions, or William Carragan (see back page for news of a new revised version of his completion of the finale). But in this place, with this orchestra and this conductor, it was a courageous and triumphant occasion.
Whether it will seem that way in the cold light of the digital laser, readers will be able to judge for themselves when the CD is issued. (see www.europ-phil.com for further information, or www.abruckner.com) Not everyone was impressed. A fellow guest in the hotel pronounced it to be ‘Rubbish!’ - he went on to explain that the benchmark by which he judged performances of the Ninth was Knappertsbusch in 1950, and nearly everything thereafter was ‘junk’. 11
I gathered that he felt that the performance lacked sharpness and bite, especially in the woodwind articulation. Another person commented how wonderful the orchestral players were, ‘But that’s the second thing,” she said, implying that she’d rather not speak of Marthé’s contribution. But for me it had succeeded: it was one of the most moving and exciting concerts it’s been my privilege to attend.
LUCERNE Concert Hall, Saturday 19 August 2006 Brahms − Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat, soloist Maurizio Pollini Bruckner − Symphony No 4 in E flat (1878/80 version) Lucerne Festival Orchestra / Claudio Abbado
This was my third experience of Abbado conducting Bruckner at the Lucerne Festival. My first memory goes back to the 1970s, when Abbado had been appointed music director of the Vienna Phil and conducted them in Bruckner's First Symphony. Smiles all round; the honeymoon was still on, but the VPO appeared to be playing Bruckner their way and taking precious little notice of the baton. More recently, Abbado conducted the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Bruckner’s Ninth. Here, in contrast, was absolute obedience to his direction but almost to a fault. A little more spontaneity wouldn’t have come amiss.
This year Abbado conducted two concerts featuring the identical Brahms-Bruckner programme (the first concert was attended by the Italian President in a private capacity). On this occasion there was neither orchestral liberty-taking nor conductor as drill-sergeant, but rather a marriage of musical minds on the highest level of technique and expression. The new Lucerne Festival Orchestra is a hand-picked body drawing primarily on the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, but also on orchestral and chamber-music players from throughout Western Europe. Tuba player Robin Haggart did the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic proud.
My heading to this review has deliberately avoided the sub-title “Romantic”. For Bruckner’s Fourth could hardly have risen farther beyond mortal pursuits. The hunting horns sounded celestial; the cello sounds in the scherzo were certainly earthy but with supernatural vigour. Abbado’s large string section underpinned a performance combining lucid textures with extraordinary rhythmic animation. His 16 violas lent splendour to the second theme of the C minor Andante. The large-scale tensions of the opening movement had their corollary in a monumental account of the revised finale. To me, it had never seemed to anticipate the last symphonies so strongly before.
This impression was borne out by the full house’s response at the end. Abbado stood stock still, and complete silence reigned for a good twenty seconds (imagine such a thing at the Proms!). The cynic in me suggests that the subsequent showering of the orchestra with floral confetti was stage- managed; the critic gladly concedes they deserved all they got. Peter Palmer
LONDON - The Proms - Royal Albert Hall 31st August 2006 Mozart - Piano Concerto in A maj. K488 Bruckner - Symphony No. 9 BBC Symphony Orchestra - Jiří Bělohlávek
2nd September 2006 Szymanowski - Violin Concerto Bruckner - Symphony No. 7 Berlin Philharmonic - Simon Rattle
Terry Barfoot was at the first of these Bruckner Proms: It was pleasing to see that Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, coupled with Mozart’s A major Piano Concerto played by Richard Goode, achieved a very full Royal Albert Hall. Jiří Bělohlávek, the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s new principal conductor, has not been particularly associated with Bruckner, 12 so it was good to find him taking on this great work. In a sense it was better still to note that during the ovation at the end of the concert, he held up the score in recognition of its mastery.
The programme book was packed full of advertising, though the Bruckner note by Stephen Johnson was as authoritative and perceptive as we have come to expect. On the other hand, the editorial decision to print a very large picture of Hermann Levi and only a ‘thumbnail’ of Bruckner was bizarre in the extreme.
Bělohlávek’s performance communicated much conviction, and for the most part held a compelling interest. It began really well with a genuine pianissimo, as the trumpets and timpani responded skilfully to the requirement of achieving a precise rhythmic unison with their additions to the atmospheric opening phase. The great crescendo into the first climax was well managed, with a rich textured string sound that would become an enduring strength as the performance proceeded. When the massive tutti arrived it was unequivocally outlined in its phrasing, though the tone might have been fuller and more massive. Perhaps this was a deliberate decision by the conductor, with longer term issues in mind.
The ensuing string polyphony was wonderfully played, articulating the details within the complex texture, while paying close attention to dynamic shadings. Perhaps the positioning of the violins, to the left and right at the front of the platform, lay behind this clear delivery. Thereafter the first movement did not always (for me) hold a consistent interest. Of course there was an ebb and flow of tension, and of course the big climaxes were suitably arresting, while the coda made its mark despite occasional rough edges of ensemble.
In general terms, the performance grew in stature as it continued. In the Scherzo the tempi seemed well chosen, with the demonic hammering of timpani and brass making their dark impact. In this context, the central trio, more rustic in character, proved a perfect foil.
The Adagio was compelling at every turn, its architecture strongly built, while points of detail were still articulated. The strongly characterised themes, including the fate-motif and the funereal chorale on Wagner tubas, were sensitively integrated into the larger scheme. As a result, the uncompromisingly powerful final climax was unleashed to form the apex of symphonic arrival, allowing the consoling E major coda to emerge as a deeply satisfying postlude.
After the concert there was much discussion of what might have been had Bruckner lived long enough to complete the symphony, or been deflected from its composition by a series of revisions of earlier projects. The various attempts at completion were also mentioned, but there was no question that Bělohlávek’s performance provided further evidence that the Ninth Symphony is one of the greatest ever written, and is wholly successful on its own terms. In that sense the three movements are fully complete.
Colin Anderson was at both Proms: Two Bruckner symphonies made it to the BBC Proms this year, the grand setting of the Royal Albert Hall commensurate with the dimension of Bruckner’s music.
On 31 August Symphony No. 9 was played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under its recently installed Principal Conductor Jiří Bělohlávek, newly together in this relationship, but orchestra and conductor are no strangers to each other. One has sensed, though, that in the early stages of his tenure that Bělohlávek is really getting the BBCSO to examine the music it plays and to lay down markers for future work. There was an element of I-dotting and T-crossing in this performance that, ultimately, didn’t quite fulfil the expectations that the solemn and compelling opening bars had intimated.
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The balance and blend of the orchestra was lucid, and Bělohlávek clarified numerous details that can go for very little. Less satisfying were the slight but significant changes of pace, and the ‘softening’ of the biggest climaxes, that slightly undermined the progress of the first movement. The Scherzo was weighty and barbed and Bělohlávek brought out the music’s modernism as well as securing a deft response to his well-judged fleet tempo for the Trio. He also captured well that the Adagio is the third of four movements. Again, as in the first movement, there were some gear-changes that unsettled the whole, and the final climax had its punch slightly pulled; what stays in the memory though was the ‘rocking’ of the final bars – for all that we know now about folios and completions, Bělohlávek made it clear that this is an unfinished symphony.
Two nights later (2 September), Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle held a sell-out audience spellbound in Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7. (The Hall was also packed for Bruckner 9.) The performance was beautifully played, honed to gleaming, but rather uninvolving, even soulless. Tempos seemed unduly protracted (the stopwatch suggested otherwise though) and every note was wrought with significance. Yet this was applied Bruckner rather than his music being illuminated from within. One could admire the technical perfection (which slipped a bit in the Scherzo and finale) but Rattle’s micro-management seemed to remove Bruckner’s direct communication and the Berliners’ silky response needed more grit, even more humanism.
The first movement dragged, and seemed unduly sectional, the timpani’s late-on first entry anything but arresting. The Adagio, the symphony’s second slow movement (or so it seemed here), lacked depth and seemed static, the ‘moderato’ section offering no contrast, the climax (Nowak’s cymbal-clash really seeming gratuitous here) was merely loud, and there was little tragic ‘overload’ from the Wagner tubas later. The Scherzo rallied the course somewhat, but the finale moved in fits, the brass uproars being portentous and with one pause long enough to merely sound too long.
Rattle has ‘known’ Bruckner 7 some while – he recorded it in Birmingham many years ago, and before that I heard him give a CBSO account in the Barbican, London (paired with Michael Tippett’s Symphony No. 4) that was magnificent, although a TBJ reader in my company hated it! I didn’t hate this Berlin account; but I was unmoved by it and time stood still in the wrong way. It’s difficult to know what Bruckner’s music means to Rattle beyond its notation, which he knows inside out (he conducted from memory) – everything played had been considered – maybe too much – and, on this occasion, the work seemed to be about very little.
What was more fascinating was how the entire audience, the odd noise-making miscreant aside, seemed transfixed – the Rattle phenomenon? That he has the capacity to take people with him was proved at the symphony’s close, when, despite the loud ending, Rattle’s upraised arms prevented any applause for several seconds (a spell only broken by a raucous “bravo”). During a Proms season when several quiet-ending works had been spoilt by too-early applause, what Rattle achieved here was a real coup de théâtre, yet for 70 or so minutes up to that point there had been little beyond beauty of sound.
[The reaction of Bruckner Journal readers was sharply divided. Some turned the radio off; one found it the most boring he’d ever listened to… but others, including most of those who met up after the concert, were greatly impressed. KW]
LUCERNE Concert Hall, Saturday 2 September 2006 Hanspeter Kyburz - Touché, soloists Laura Aikon and John Mark Ainsley Bruckner - Symphony No 5 Cleveland Orchestra / Franz Welser-Möst
Anton Bruckner as symphonist was also represented at this year’s Lucerne Festival by his Fifth Symphony. As we know, this symphony lay in the Master’s drawer for fifteen years before the well-meaning Franz Schalk conducted the première in Graz, a performance involving cuts and further mutilations. Bruckner, then already seriously ill, never heard the work performed. It was first given uncut in 1935. 14
In scope the work surpasses (if one excepts Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony) the entire previous symphonic repertoire, including Bruckner’s own earlier symphonies. Chorale, fugue, and melodies with a popular lilt together form a cosmos in which the contrasting sections are combined in a gripping, sometimes profoundly moving whole. Not for nothing do the most eminent conductors vie for a fitting interpretation of this enormous work. With the excellent players of the Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst provided a very solid and disciplined performance with flowing tempi, glossing over rather than underlining the breaks in the symphony. In the process, however, Bruckner's expressive range between monumental solemnity, ‘misterioso’ and ecstatic melody was not fully explored. Although Bruckner’s Fifth would suffice to fill an evening, the premiere of Hanspeter Kyburz's Touché was a welcome prelude. Soprano Laura Aikon, standing in at short notice, and the tenor John Mark Ainsley sang the dialogue of a separated couple who (in Sabine Marienberg's text) achieve a parallel song in their dreams at least. A skilfully wrought score.
Albert Bolliger (transl. Peter Palmer)
CD and record reviews
Bruckner Symphony No.4 in E flat (Romantic) [Edition by Robert Haas] London Philharmonic Orchestra Klaus Tennstedt LPO – 0014
Recorded at a concert in the Royal Festival Hall, London on 14 December 1989, this large- scale (71-minute), very public and also very private account of Bruckner’s ‘Romantic’ Symphony – a performance that is caught on the wing – begins on the merest wisp of sound. Floating above this is fine and evocative horn solo. The first movement is powerfully suggestive and volatile and is revealed with trenchancy, fantasy and enquiry. Klaus Tennstedt’s burning conviction for the music is reciprocated by the London Philharmonic in a rendition that is not afraid to squeeze every possibility of expression out of the score but in a way that is neither mawkish nor inorganic. Woodlands and mountains are vividly conjured – man’s relationship with nature, whether awesome or contemplative; throughout a sense of searching and arriving is compelling and must have been tremendous in the Hall on the night. The second movement (termed Andante in the London Philharmonic’s presentation; it should be Andante quasi allegretto) is solemn and pensive and the scherzo is pushed along – a bit too much, maybe, but it’s tremendously exciting and fiery – the LPO required to fit all the notes in the concentrated space provided, which is achieved with aplomb; the trio is full of repose, melodies blissfully shaped without threatening the design. The finale, broadly paced, without approaching the ‘adagio’ approach that Robert Simpson advocated for this movement, is full of wonderment and resounds with impulses that are vividly alive – Tennstedt includes the very effective if dubious cymbal clash in the first climax (as did Furtwängler, Eugen Jochum and Karajan, and which Robert Haas wouldn’t have claimed in his edition) – and concludes with a coda both deep and triumphant, something held in reserve for the final ascent. This is a transcendent performance. The sound has more depth of field than was actually the case in the Royal Festival Hall and thus some immediacy is lost; and the re-mastering is good – not always the case with this series, but here, thank goodness, there is no tainting of timbres. What a difference it makes in appreciating what is a mighty and considerable performance. That said, if the sound is a little contained in the mightiest fortissimos, then the brass still has a fine glint. Admirers of Bruckner and Tennstedt shouldn’t hesitate. Colin Anderson
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Bruckner Symphony No. 3 (reconstructed from the 1873, 1876, 1877 and 1889 editions by Peter Jan Marthé) Symphony No. 4 in E flat (Romantic; Robert Haas Edition)* European Philharmonic / Junge Österreichische* Peter Jan Marthé
“One of the great spirits which opened a portal to eternity for all the people included in the banality of everyday’s (sic) life.” Peter Jan Marthé on Bruckner.
Marthé, composer and conductor, has fashioned a ‘new’ Bruckner 3 – one using the above versions: several versions of Bruckner 3 made into one. Marthé also conducts Symphony No. 4. These are fascinating CDs sent to me by Ken Ward. Below are website and e-mail details. I am assuming that these CDs are available to purchase. Indeed, since writing this article I have been advised that Symphony No. 3 is on Preiser PR90715 (2 CDs) and can be obtained from the European Philharmonic’s site or from www.jpc.de – I cannot imagine that anyone interested in Bruckner’s music not wishing to hear Marthé’s version Symphony No. 3 – both as its editor and its conductor. Timings: 28, 27, 12, 20 minutes. My copies have the slow movement second (as at the performance on 19 August 2005) but Mr Marthé has now decided that the Scherzo should be placed second. As one journeys through this outsize, 88-minute Bruckner 3, one of course hears the different editions and recognises each. That the whole ‘works’ is due to the material being consistent, if stylishly different, but it is conducted and played with such commitment that one becomes immersed in it. The pacing at the opening is very deliberate; the rhythmic profiling made explicit. This is Bruckner made grand and rhetorical, but the illumination comes from within, and the preparation and realisation of the symphony – once Marthé’s edition had been finalised – is both individual and, dare one say it, fanatical. Rather than give a blow-by-blow account of what happens over the nearly 90-minute stretch, I can only say that what Marthé has done is more than stitch together a ‘best of’ version, but has found a way of amalgamating the various versions into one edition that has far-reaching implications, one that can seem disparate, yet which exudes fascination. This performance, given in St Florian, is accomplished, finely prepared and attuned, and well recorded in that the spacious acoustic and the long reverberation is faithfully captured and also that the orchestra is lucid and powerful. There are a few rough edges, but the spirit of the performance more than compensates. Some editing is apparent, maybe between rehearsals and performance. Some will feel as I do that the dance-music trio is rather heavy-handed, and will note that the final climax of the slow movement attracts cymbal clashes, as does a passage in the finale, in which contrasts are vivid. Yet one senses a real devotion in Marthé’s editing and in his conducting; and he has some fine players with him. Controversial this project may be, but I for one have found it a fascinating listening experience. Marthé owes a lot to Sergiu Celibidache, a big influence on him (and, it must be said, this writer). Marthé conducts Bruckner’s Fourth as edited by Robert Haas. This seems to be a performance from 1996, with the Junge Österreichische, a predecessor of the European Philharmonic. It’s a spacious account, with a marked crescendo at the beginning that seems intended rather than being electronic manipulation. The strings are a vibrant presence and there is a real sense of going somewhere. This Fourth is rich, powerful but also lucid, very well played, albeit with maybe the brass too loud. But there’s a vision here and the music is (again) illuminated from within and suggests 16 vistas; the performance is warm, surging, involved and involving, the music given space and largesse without compromising structure; there’s a glory here that never seems obese. Celibidache is summoned for the movement-timings; those for Marthé’s 78-minute account are uncannily similar to Celibidache’s 1988 Munich Philharmonic account on EMI. The Scherzo, sturdy and rhythmically incisive has a marked slowing at its mid-point; the Trio is leisurely. The finale is massive with significant ‘adagio’ elements; the march-like strings from 22’49” (Marthé takes 27 minutes for the finale) will certainly have your ears pricking up! Well worth seeking out. Marthé is his own man.
Colin Anderson www.europ-phil.com e-mail: [email protected]
Recorded performances of Bruckner’s String Quintet (This is an edited version of an interesting review published on Amazon.com, of the Camerata CD with the Vienna Quintet. It is published with the kind permission of the author. At present it is a review that recommends recordings that are not at present available - none of them - but possibly they will all appear again somewhere in the fullness of time.)
As what you might call a Compulsive Brucknerian, I have collected 16 versions of Bruckner's String Quintet over the past 30+ years. Obviously this way lies madness, so I have decided to “lighten up,” in more ways than one, and un-load all but FOUR of them. This decision was occasioned by the realization that 1) it’s time for spring cleaning, 2) I need to make room for future CD purchases. So here are the fruits of my many listenings to this wonderful Bruckner work. If you are not familiar with it, let me say that you won’t find here the economy of expression and tightly-argued writing of earlier chamber masters like Mozart, Beethoven, or Schubert. Bruckner was a 19th Century romantic, and for that school chamber music was not a primary means of communication. Several of the greatest romantic composers - Berlioz, Wagner and Liszt - wrote no chamber music at all. Brahms & Dvorak both composed superb chamber works, but that’s because they shared a strong orientation in earlier classical forms. Bruckner’s Quintet, on the other hand, is really a symphony in chamber music garb. There are times when you almost expect the brass to come crashing in, but it’s not to be. The music abounds in the large blocks of harmonies, chromatic modulations, and the gigantic, majestic crescendos that make his symphonies so distinctive. Harmonically, I think it wavers between the sound worlds of Schubert and Wagner. If most chamber works are like charcoal etchings, Bruckner’s Quintet has masses of sound that are more like a large canvas in oil. It’s a unique work, and it came from fairly late in Bruckner’s career (it was written between the 5th & 6th symphonies). The Intermezzo, with which the Quintet is usually paired on recordings, is an alternate movement for the Quintet. Bruckner wrote it at the beseeching of the work’s first players, who found the original second mvt. too hard to play. It’s one of Bruckner’s most enchanting works, with tender melody and rich harmonies. I find it impossible to choose between it and the original scherzo - both are wonderful. The Camerata CD with the Vienna Quintet is beautifully recorded and gorgeously played: it’s the ONE CD account that I’ll be keeping. Here is how the various remaining versions line up in my affections:
1. Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet with Ferdinand Stangler, second viola. This was once on a Vanguard LP, and hopefully it will re-appear as a CD. This string quartet was formed in 1934 and featured Anton Kamper, 1st violin; Karl Maria Titze, second violin; Erich Weiss, viola; and Franz Kvarda, cello. All were players in the Vienna Philharmonic under Furtwangler, and their musical aesthetic was similar to his. Their LP records fetch ridiculous prices in the collector’s market (especially their uniquely lyrical Schubert offerings). This and the Koeckert version are the TWO I would keep if the desert island beckoned. 17
2. Koeckert Quartet (with George Schmid), formerly on Decca LP and hopefully a candidate for re- issue by DG. All of the players were principals in the Bavarian Radio Symphony under Eugen Jochum, and no doubt their playing in so many Bruckner symphonies under Jochum contributed to their eloquent interpretation of the Quintet (by itself - no Intermezzo).
3. The Camerata CD with the Vienna Quintet, all of whom are players in the Vienna Philharmonic. Their performance is very idiomatic and very Austrian.
4. Philharmonic String Quintet, Vienna. This was the work’s first recorded performance (there is no Intermezzo) and probably hails from the 1930’s. It was once on a 1950 Polydor Vox LP and features far more string portamento than any other version. It’s poorly recorded, rather slow, and not as well played as my first three choices.
5. Keller Quartet (with Georg Schmid). Actually this contains just the Intermezzo (no Quintet). It’s a dry and un-inspired reading - I only keep it because of the coupling: Bruckner's earlier (1862) String Quartet in C Minor (in truth, it's little more than an exercise and not very rewarding).
All music lovers who fancy chamber music and/or Bruckner really ought to have a version of Bruckner’s remarkable String Quintet. This Camerata CD account strikes me as the best of the current lot. If the Konzerthaus and Koeckert versions ever make it to CD, I think you will find them even more satisfying, despite their mono sound. Highly recommended. Jeff Lipscomb, Sacramento, CA USA Since writing this review Jeff Lipscomb has started to write for Fanfare: The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors.
Gerhard Markson and Bryden Thomson Bruckner Symphony Cycles John Berky requests assistance in locating recordings from the Gerhard Markson Bruckner cycle, except Die Nullte, (Broadcast on Lyric FM in 2002-03), and Bryden Thomson Bruckner cycle. Anyone who can help, contact John Berky at www.abruckner.com, 21 Juniper Road, Windsor, CT 06095 - USA
Kant and Bruckner: Twelve Variations
In a volume of poetry by Jan Zwicky, first published in 1998, now in its 6th printing (Aug. 2006), with the title Songs For Relinquishing The Earth, is a poem called Kant and Bruckner: Twelve Variations. In the short preface Jan Zwicky explains her conviction that the ‘number and sort of echoes in the lives of Immanuel Kant and Anton Bruckner have to be more than coincidental’. She lists similarities amongst which are the facts that they didn’t produce much till late in life, then what they produced was massive: ‘dense, huge, and astonishingly intricate’; they were both ‘naïfs, devoutly religious, devoted to their mothers, anxious not to offend’; both were obsessive revisers, etc. The twelve variations, 5 pairs of lines in each, explore these and other aspects of the two men and their work. The book is published by Brick Books, Ontario. Copies are available at abebooks.co.uk. 18
CD ISSUES JUL - OCT 2006 Compiled by Howard Jones and John Wright
The quiet spell for Bruckner releases continued through the summer months but September brought forth a good number of issues. We can now confirm that the Wand/NDRSO #7 that had an editing fault on first release has been corrected, so Stephen Johnson can safely restore this to first choice (see TBJ Vol 10, No 2 page 9). Both the Wand #7’s were on promotion in Germany at mid-price. There seems every prospect of cycles of the symphonies from Dennis Russell Davies, Ivor Bolton and Peter Jan Marthé. Particularly worthwhile this time round are the two DVD's, both of which have had good reviews.
SYMPHONIES * = new issue
Symphony in F Minor Ashkenazy/Deutsches SO Berlin (Berlin 9-98) ONDINE ODE9200 (43:51) plus Adagio from String Quintet (arr. Oeser) (16:02)
No. 0 *Shimono/Osaka PO (Osaka 11-05) AVEX CLASSICS AVCL-25099 (53:42)
No. 4 *Tennstedt/LPO (RFH London 12-89) LPO LPO0014 (71:01) Sinopoli/Dresden Staatskapelle (Dresden 9-87) DG 423 677-2 (66:58) *van Zweden/Netherlands RPO (Hilversum 4-06) EXTON OVCL-00248 (71:36) van Otterloo/Residency Orch-Hague (Amsterdam 5-53) CHALLENGE RECORDS CC72142/CD-7 (63:51) plus Overture in G Minor (Amsterdam 10-54) (10:26) 3 CD set “WILLEM van OTTERLOO AND THE HAGUE RESIDENCY ORCH”
No. 5 *Wand/Munich PO (Munich 11/12-95) PROFIL PH06012 (75:41)
No. 7 Knappertsbusch/VPO (Salzburg 8-49) ORFEO D’OR C655061B (63:52) Wand/BPO (Berlin 11-99) RCA RED SEAL 74321 68716 (63:31) Wand/NDRSO (Hamburg 3-92) RCA RED SEAL 09026 61398 (63:58) *Bolton/Mozarteum Orch Salzburg (Salzburg 2-06) OEHMS OC568 (64:31) *Barbirolli/Hall© (Manchester 4-67) BBC LEGENDS BBCL4186-2 (62:09) plus Beethoven overtures
No. 8 *Wand/Munich PO (Munich 9-00) PROFIL PH06008 (89:42) plus Schubert #8 (2 CD's)
No. 9 *Jochum/BPO (Berlin 11-77) PALEXA CD-0530 (59:43) Mravinsky/St Petersburg PO (St Petersburg 1-80) CLASSIC GALLERY CDMAN136 (59:40)
DVD
No. 7 *Abbado/Lucerne Fest. Orch (Lucerne 8-05) EUROARTS 2054649 (62:34) plus Beethoven Piano Concerto #3 (Brendel)
No. 9 *Bernstein/VPO (Vienna 2/3-90) EUROARTS 2072018 (68:44)
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* Thematic and Tonal Unity in Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony
Paul Dawson-Bowling
I
Bruckner thought that his eighth Symphony was his best. Its scale is immense and it explores a wealth of drama, poetry and intricate feeling. Yet it fulfils to an exceptional degree the aspiration of the nineteenth-century symphonists to cast all four movements in a single, unitary span, which would culminate in the finale. As terseness of this kind was difficult to reconcile with such size and variety, Bruckner adopted unusual means to achieve it. The music’s emotional basis had to be dynamic, a progress from darkness to light. The structure had to be compressed; in the outer movements, Bruckner telescoped the development and recapitulation and avoided what Romantics from Mahler to Debussy felt as a break, a beginning again, at the reprise. But more fundamental to his purpose were his unorthodox methods of thematic integration and his use of tonality.
The symphony’s thematic elements are a germinal motive, an arpeggio fanfare, and a series of falling scales. The germinal motive begins the work in a hazy pianissimo, but neither dim scoring nor dubious tonality disguise its significance (Ex. I). What Bruckner does is to make the motive branch
Ex. 1
out in variants like the limbs of a tree, each of them pursuing a life of its own through the symphony. Even by bar seven, the motive is considerably modified (Ex. 2). By bar twelve, the strings have given
Ex.2
their variant greater definition and a Bruckner rhythm that is to persist through the movement (Ex. 3).
Ex.3
* All references and bar numbers concern the edition of the Symphony prepared by Robert Haas - Breitkopf and Härtel Musikverlag Leipzig 20
The oboe clings to the motive’s important cadence until the strings recognize it as a separate entity, enriching it with triplets and polyphony. Much music will come from it. All this is reviewed in a massive counterstatement which ends with a derivative from the cadence, gyrating down to the depths in triplets. At length when it will fall no further, the tide turns, flowing upwards in a G major cantabile. This looks like a further development of the germinal motive, now evolved beyond recognition in a process which Sibelius would have approved (Ex. 4). Ex. 4
But there is a difference in that the process of evolution has produced a second subject, with a new warmth that is a foil to the principal motive. The woodwind carol a variant (Ex. 5) and a further elaboration takes the form of a spacious, aspiring melody for which an inversion of Ex. 4 provides the Ex. 5
bass line. Everything interlocks, drawing the symphony together in a thematic framework of unparalleled strength (Ex. 6)
Ex. 6
The developing role of the triplets makes for unity; sporadic at first, they are well entrenched in the second subject and still more so in the third, with a rhythm. But what is more striking about the third subject is its melodic origin. It begins at bar ninety- seven with the final cadence from the germinal motive, strengthened by the omission of the mournful accidental (Ex. 7).
Ex.7
There follow some brazen falling scales, and in a sudden piano, the tuba plays and develops the first five notes of the germinal motive (Ex. 8).
Ex. 8
21
As for the scales, they bear a strong resemblance to the inversion of the second subject - so strong that to avoid repetitiveness, Bruckner left them out of the development where he did, in fact, use that inversion to a similar brazen effect. The third subject appears as a combination of elements from the first two.
Falling scales make an interesting feature of this symphony. They are too general a feature to make thematic links themselves, but it is difficult to escape the conviction that their arrangement in this symphony contributes to its unity. For the most part they take a secondary position in the subject groups where they appear. They answer the principle motives of the third subject of the first movement, the first of the Adagio, and the first, second and third subjects of the finale. There are less obvious examples where the effect is blurred and subliminal, such as the point where the first movement’s second subject inverts and descends in the brass beneath a soaring theme.
Sometimes the falling scales are thematically connected. There is an extraordinary passage in the development (Ex. 9). The upstroke from the symphony’s main theme appears on the basses and
Ex. 9
Ex. 10a
horn in succession, with an inversion of the second subject on the violins - a falling scale. If this is set against the opening of the scherzo (Ex.10a), then the near identity of the two passages is striking. Ex. 9 is virtually the rib which Bruckner took from the first movement to make a second. He modified the rhythm (naturally), and some of the intervals, and he sharpened the upstroke into a grace-note, but none of this obscures the fundamental unity. In the scherzo, the transcribed passage generates a response similar to itself (Ex. 10b), the theme for unison violas/cellos, as is Bruckner’s way, and these twin motives are material for the entire scherzo.
Ex. 10b
22
To return to the first movement, there is still the other new motive, the blazing fanfare at the end of the exposition (Ex. 11). Because its key, E flat, appears here for the first time, it almost seems
Ex. 11
like the symphony’s real second subject, the second subject of some musical structure larger than the individual movements. Its importance grows clear later.
The scherzo evolves from a cell of its rugged predecessor, but the trio is quite different. Composed after the rest of the symphony, its links are faint - tenuous reminiscences, or hints of things to come. The fanfare triplets at bars twenty-five or seventy-seven look forward to a similar passage shortly before the Adagio’s climax, while the bass line here anticipates the Adagio’s obsessive and even the notes at bars 117 and 119; and the scoring of the first beats of bar 25 sq. has the same weight as the Adagio in its massive arpeggio motive (bars 15, etc.). The scoring of harps and the serenity of their music are a rare effect in Bruckner, and they anticipate the harps in the Adagio.
The scherzo is repeated, and the Adagio follows. Its opening theme (Ex. 12) calls up
Ex.12
a new, strange world with its fusion of ecstasy and desolation, and although the music starts to evolve through familiar references, a falling scale and an arpeggio fanfare, the familiarity is disguised. The vision of the arpeggio theme in the first movement was vivid but brief, and it is the Adagio which clarifies its significance. It is modified starkly, with a weighty violin arpeggio heavily underlined by the brass (Ex. 13). Although the connection with the first movement is emotionally compelling, it is
Ex. 13
not made explicit in the Adagio’s climax. There the motive returns to its original key (E flat) and form, rising to the major third of the triad. This association lies at the heart of the Adagio and of the whole symphony, since it is this motive which cantilevers the symphonic span through the Adagio to the peaks of the finale. Upon its Adagio appearances Bruckner hung a web of polyphony that is startlingly different from the rest of the symphony, even though there are faint links. Concealed in the second subject, for example, is the conclusion of the germinal motive (Ex. 14), and as such it pursues an important but surreptitious course.
23
Ex. 14
It brightens for two great horn calls (Ex. 15) and in the closing bars it is the link with the codas of the
Ex. 15
first and last movements (Exs. 16, 17, 18). But the second subject’s ramifications are often diffuse,
Ex. 16 Ex. 17 Ex. 18
like the merger with the scale passage from the first subject (Ex. 19) with its expressive appoggiaturas
Ex. 19
at bar 221 [Nowak 211], and much of the music tends towards a mysterious fantasy. Two equivocal derivatives of the symphony’s germinal motive suddenly appear at bars 200 and 204, but it is the arpeggio motive that is the agent of unity.
The opening of the finale is one of music’s supreme glories. The grace notes from the scherzo galvanise the rhythm (Ex. 20), and against them is thrown a mighty expansion of the
Ex. 20
work’s principal motive, in the glowing harmonies of a chorale (Ex. 21). The whole section is crowned by trumpets with the familiar fanfare. This is answered by the affirmation of C minor,
Ex. 21
an immense extension of the germinal motive’s cadence, which had developed in the scherzo and now makes a scale passage which will persist in the other subjects. 24
The glowing “Gesangsperiode”, the second subject, (Ex. 22) also mirrors the shape of its first
Ex. 22
movement counterpart - not in its original form - but after inversion, as a basis of the melody at bar 63 (cf. Ex. 6). But the finale draws it bass line from a more distant origin; it is a modified reminiscence of the Adagio at bar 221[Nowak 211] (and thus of the Adagio’s second subject). The second motive in the group is a falling scale (bar 77) and its reappearance at bar 164 again suggests that these scales are links. The finale persists in reflecting the first movement throughout the third subject (Ex. 23), with its community of key (E flat minor) and double octaves.
Ex. 23
As elements of other movements are drawn into the finale and fulfilled, the distinction between the new material and that of other movements starts to dissolve. First the rhythm of the symphony’s germinal motive is suddenly flung against the progress of the third subject at bar 183; and the turbulence is answered after an interlude by the principal motive of the Adagio, serenely intoned by the horns. Significant in itself, it is also a premonition of the reprise. There the same thing happens again, but this time the germinal motive appears in full, darkly resplendent as a brass chorale. It is interesting and characteristic of the symphony’s emotive progress that now the response is not the balm from the Adagio but the triumph and splendour of the coda. If the connected origins of the themes weld the work together, the coda clinches the point. The themes of the Adagio, scherzo, first movement/cum finale are presented as a single majestic entity, together with the grace-notes and fanfares. The origins of the motives were few, and they are shown to have had a single destiny (Ex. 24).
Ex. 24
25
Bruckner made every element in his design underline its progress from darkness to light. Orchestration plays an important part. Strange tremolos and mysterious depths gradually give way to richer sonorities. There is nothing in the first two movements like the peculiar glow with which the finale’s opening is scored. Then again, the harmony grows progressively warmer, and the rhythm is gradually sharpened. It is natural that the first movement should be most nebulous. Bruckner left his first subject unharmonized, and indeed, all subjects begin so indecisively that they are well underway before they are recognized. The metre is ambivalent, vacillating between four-four and six-four, and for all the underlying inexorability, the dotted rhythm is often hesitant. Any rare flashes of light dissolve into mist.
But in the scherzo, rhythms and themes are more forthright, and no subject in the first movement was so firmly announced as the cellos’ first contribution to the second. The Adagio is even clearer, for the timeless absence of rhythm is compensated by a luminous tonality, and whenever this shifts and diversifies, the rhythms gain strength and avoid the ambiguity of the first movement. As for the finale, its close relationship with the first movement highlights the contrasts. The second subject opens with a vivid diatonicism in A flat, a much more radiant key than the G for its counterpart in the first movement. The third subject has a sturdy, assertive march rhythm which is also very different from the hollow gloom of the octave horns in the first movement.
Everything is concentrated towards the end of the symphony, and the thematic structure radiates outward from the beginning towards the fusion at the end of the finale. Yet it is doubtful whether even Anton Bruckner could have maintained the symphony’s integrity and balanced its contrasts if he had not deployed another, subliminal influence, that of tonality.
Part two of this article, concerning the tonal unity of the Eighth Symphony, will be published in the next issue of The Bruckner Journal. This is a slightly revised version of an article first published in The Music Review Vol. 30 No. 3, in August 1969. We publish it here by kind permission of Dr Paul Dawson-Bowling. Should there be any other claims on copyright, please contact the Editor.
Bruckner Symphonies Study Weekends
Ian Beresford Gleaves will be presenting a series of three study weekends at Madingley Hall, nr. Cambridge (http://www.cont-ed.cam.ac.uk/Hall).
Symphonies 1-3, Sept. 7-9 2007 Symphonies 4-6 Nov 30-Dec 2 2007 Symphonies 7-9 March7-9 2008
Those who have attended previous such weekends at a different venue warmly recommend them 26
Bruckner in the Academy
Raymond J. Rice
It is decidedly un-trendy, if not somewhat perilous, to speak of transcendence and universality in academia today. As an instructor of Early Modern British literature and literary theory, and an avid cultural materialist in my professional writings, I have for several years exhorted students, in the words of Frederic Jameson, to “always historicize!” - to contextualize, to search for the immanent and the political in even the most avowedly “universal” of writings. Indeed, what has long fascinated me about “texts” (Shakespeare, Rushdie, Derrida) is their indeterminacy. In a world which, since my childhood, has routinely posited simplistic black-and-white answers to questions that are anything but simple and (almost) never black-and-white, knowing that even the most authoritarian of words may be “deconstructed” was not only a comfort but also the cornerstone for cultural reformation.
Music, however, speaks a different language. As Ian Beresford Gleaves noted in the November 2005 volume of this journal, music evokes an “unseen order of awareness.” Like texts, it is “integrally connected with the physical, and by implication, the visible world.” Unlike texts, it is connected “with the invisible, intangible world of the spirit.”1 It is not my intention to engage the issue of Anton Bruckner’s Catholicism and its role in his music; that relationship has been extensively examined by musicologists and others with far more expertise than me. But I do wish to examine, for a few minutes, the importance - both literal and symbolic - that an appreciation of Bruckner’s music holds for our view of academia and the nature of education occurring within it.
This linkage of Bruckner’s transcendent architectonics to higher education may initially seem a bit far-fetched. But it is far from it. Bruckner’s symphonies provide a critical commentary upon the late Romantic tradition - one which, as recent critics such as Julian Horton illustrate, goes far beyond the Brahms vs. Wagner debate.2 According to Horton, a major obstacle towards developing new perspectives on Bruckner’s music has been the fixation on his asserted attempt “to make a fundamentally anti-classical [leitmotiv] style accord with classical forms.”3 The misconception that he was somehow at work on a doomed synthesis culminates in the joke my father once told me: that Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times and never improved it. To this day, liner notes frequently point out the “naiveté” of Bruckner in regards to both social and musical circles; such a characterization subtly reinforces the concept that the import of Bruckner’s music - whether venerated or castigated - derives from an essential failure. This critical (and academic) perspective in turn sets up Bruckner as a “problem” to be solved (much like the “problem” of Shakespeare’s late plays); all critical assessment and appreciation must start from this preconception.
Enjoying Bruckner, whether it be from a purely emotional or a more critical perspective, must be freed from this myth of a failed dialectic - one historically propounded by foe (critics like Eduard Hanslick) and friend (his well-meaning “advisors” and “revisers”) alike. This myth affects listeners on an individual as well as an academic level. Personally, as someone who came to Bruckner’s symphonies rather late in his music-listening life, I suffered from what Walker Percy would call a “radical loss of sovereignty” over my experience of Bruckner. Indeed, I held knowledge of the critical perspective of Bruckner - of how he (negatively) “failed” or (positively) “transcended” the symphonic sonata form - long before I heard his works. Thus, I knew of others’ myths of Bruckner well before I encountered the sounds of his symphonies themselves. Only by ceasing to claim that Bruckner is somehow the mirror image of the Viennese symphonic project, only by, as Horton exhorts, divesting his music of its quasi-mystical “historical otherness” and placing it “within the Beethovenian tradition,” can we begin to get beyond the descriptive stereotypes (“monumental,” “anachronistic,”
1 See Mr. Gleaves’ insightful “Bruckner, God, and Light” (The Bruckner Journal, November 2005), for a finely written discussion of this “intersection” of “outer” and “inner” (or mundane and spiritual) experience (p. 21). 2 See Horton’s excellent Bruckner’s Symphonies: Analysis, Reception and Cultural Politics (Cambridge UP, 2004) for an detailed analysis of many of these issues. 3 Horton, p. 24. 27
“mystical,” etc.) so often applied to his work.4 In other words, by recontextualizing his work within the period’s philosophical and social contexts, we can begin to appreciate a fuller set of distinctions from that tradition and, I would argue, a different philosophical project at work within them.
This philosophical project - expressed through a music connecting the physical to the intangible - is, of course, a transcendent one. Needless to say, this is where, from an academic perspective, the controversy begins. According to Julian Horton, “Bruckner’s music often plays out with startling force the conflicts between subjectivity and faith, bourgeois secularity and religious authority, traditional artifice and radical innovation that define their time.”5 Yet the very structure of his works, ones which to this lay-listener move inevitably toward an all-embracing celebration and acclamation, is predicated upon a sophisticated Hegelian sublation of difference. This is most markedly displayed in his chorale-like fourth movement codas, in which (quite often) the turbulent first subject of the first movement returns - transformed - to complete the triumphant restatement of the final movement’s primary theme. Thus, Bruckner’s dialectical movement within his symphonies is not so much a synthesis of two opposing elements in musical history (the Wagnerian leitmotif vs. the Beethovenian sonata form), but rather a synthesis of human experience, both secular and sacred, in which the ostensibly oppositional elements are themselves transformed or “sublated.” The ultimate goal is thus not (or at least not only) a synthesis of musical method (as early post-Hegelian critics argued), but the achievement of a musical event encompassing the human condition.
The original (1872) version of Bruckner’s Second Symphony in C Minor serves as an early example of this synthesis. Like so many of his works, multiple versions are extant; the “problem” about which version is most authentic commands almost as much critical attention as the music itself. However, in terms of a successful overall dialectical project, the 1872 (Carragan) edition is preferable because only in this original version (prior to well-meaning editorial “assistance”) does Bruckner explicitly engage a multiple synthesis of the martial and the sacred, rondo and sonata forms, and the teleological and the recursive. Even to a lay listener, the echoes of Beethoven are readily apparent: from the expressive yet ambiguous opening, to the placement of the Scherzo as the second movement, to the strings’ ostinato during the first movement’s coda.6 Although, as Julian Horton explains, there are both advantages and drawbacks to subsequent versions,7 each revision substantially alters the content and effect of the original Finale, most notably by truncating (or completely removing) the quotation of the Kyrie from Bruckner’s own Mass in F minor. This quotation is referenced initially after the first major climax of the movement, which combines the martial theme with the rhythm of the opening movement’s first subject. One of Bruckner’s famous “silences” follows, after which the violins quote the Kyrie.8 Prior to the movement’s coda, the Kyrie reference re-appears (after another silence!); the coda is itself interrupted by references to the Finale’s delicate second subject and the reappearance of the first movement’s ambiguous opening. Only then does the coda transform into a completely affirmative C major.
What is remarkable about this symphony as a whole, and the Finale as a single (but not singular) movement, is the manner in which Bruckner produces an aesthetically beautiful sound event that mirrors the textual beauty of a philosophical project. But Bruckner effects this not by simply attempting a synthesis of disparate elements. In fact, Hegel (whose philosophy is so commonly evoked, directly or indirectly, positively as well as negatively, in criticism of Bruckner), is quite clear on the point that “synthesis” as a project is not, ultimately, about the successful incorporation of opposing forces. Rather, synthesis is only a method of apprehending the infinite and, with it, self- consciousness. Or, as Hegel explains:
4 Horton, p. 61. 5 Horton, p. 259. 6 Both Erwin Doernberg in The Life and Symphonies of Anton Bruckner (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1960) and Julian Horton (Cambridge U.P., 2004), from very different critical perspectives, present excellent discussions of Bruckner’s allusions. 7 Horton pays particular attention to the conflict between philology and aesthetics typified by the argument between Nowak and Haas, respectively. 8 Doernberg claims that this quotation actually refers to Bruckner’s thankfulness at recovering from a nervous breakdown (p. 135), a claim that Horton investigates as highly problematic for multiple reasons. 28
The exposition of its Notion belongs to Science; but consciousness, in the way that it immediately has this Notion, again comes on the scene as a form belonging to consciousness itself, or as a new shape of consciousness, which does not recognize in what has gone before its own essence, but looks on it as something quite different. … I, the selfsame being, repel myself from myself; but what is posited as distinct from me, or as unlike me, is immediately, in being so distinguished, not a distinction for me.9
I would argue that the Finale of Bruckner’s Second effects the difficult textual experience of Hegel’s Phenomenology but does so much more organically than the writing itself.10 For not only is the Finale transformed from within by its own thematic structure, it is doubly and trebly transformed from themes appearing earlier in the symphony and, finally, by external sources as well (such as the Kyrie and the allusion to Beethoven). Thus, the tonal scheme of the movement is related not only to the work as a whole (obviously not in and of itself a revolutionary development), but also to the overall tonal scheme of Bruckner’s oeuvre (with the inclusion of the Kyrie theme), as well as an even more universal tonal scheme within the symphonic tradition (through the structural “mating” of the Kyrie to the martial theme and its reflection of Beethoven’s tonal strategy in his Ninth). As is well documented, this philosophical and structural approach is reflected, refracted, and refined in several later Finales.
In effect, Bruckner exhorts the listener to experience an inner transformation similar to the external transformation of the symphony itself. As the symphony experiences the “self- consciousness” of a distinction of self and Other that ultimately collapses into unity, so too does the listener experience this necessary integration of the (formerly) distinct Being and Spirit:
The two extremes [of this syllogism], the one, of the pure inner world, the other, that of the inner being gazing into this pure inner world, have now coincided, and just as they, qua extremes, have vanished, so too the middle term, as something other than these extremes, has also vanished. This curtain [of appearance] hanging before the inner world is therefore drawn away, and we have the inner being [the ‘I’] gazing into the inner world—the vision of the undifferentiated selfsame being, which repels itself from itself, posits itself as an inner being containing different moments, but for which equally these moments are immediately not different—self-consciousness.11
I would argue that Bruckner’s Second Symphony not only facilitates this gaze into the pure inner world, but that the music stages the experience itself. Moreover, this musical experience provides the foundation for a deeper understanding of self-consciousness as a method, an epistemology. Put one way, the insertion of the Kyrie (sacred music) allows the “extremes” of the martial theme and the second subject (both secular music) to collapse into one another in the double- movement of the coda. This moment of dialectical synthesis in turn empowers the removal of the “extremes” of the opening of the symphony and the Finale’s principal theme. Finally, this second
9 G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 102 (Oxford U. P., 1977). 10 I hope the distinction between my engagement with Hegel’s concepts and Hans Alfred Grunsky’s mechanistic application of Hegel’s dialectic to Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony is immediately apparent. Aside from the fact that Grunsky’s analysis served Nazi nationalistic interests and contributed to the academic “legitimation” of Bruckner as a tool of Nazi propaganda, his reading is a completely formal one that begins and ends with the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements of the movement itself. As such, it denies connections to extra- diegetic material and thus denies the experiential connection between listener and music except on an ideological level. Or, put another way, Grunsky turns Hegel’s dialectic into a (politically cynical) exercise which allows him to elevate Bruckner as the embryo of a new Geist (one that eventually embodies National Socialist consciousness) but fails to account for the intentionally heteroglot elements of Bruckner’s music. Thus, Grunsky (and the interpretive tradition he heralded) transforms Bruckner into an ideological tool, defined by the fact that an emotional response (fascist nationalism) is purported to follow the “appropriate” understanding of the work’s dialectical form. See “Cultural Politics and Nazi Appropriation” of Horton’s Bruckner’s Symphonies for a detailed analysis of Grunsky’s argument. 11 Hegel, p. 103. 29 dialectic effects two subsequent ones - the dissolution of the Second Symphony itself as a discrete work in Bruckner’s oeuvre (looking both “backward” to the First and Nullte Symphonies and “forward” to the Third), as well as a sublation of Bruckner’s symphonic (and sacred) body of music as distinct from the traditions and composers preceding (and following) him. The Finale is thus akin to a pebble dropped into a pond; it generates multiple waves of sound and understanding that, to a listener “open” to the experience, can generate subtle yet profound dialectical transformations.
Conceptually, Bruckner’s employment of a dialectical movement is categorically different from the “transformation” themes present in several popular (and near-contemporaneous) Romantic works. Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” (1867), Glazunov’s “From Darkness into Light” (1894), and Sibelius’ “Nightride and Sunrise” (1908) each evoke conflict between elements of light and darkness and an ultimate transformation of struggle into affirmation. But such works rely upon a Manichean duality - a philosophy dividing the world into discrete good and evil principles. Obviously, such dramatic tonal conflicts had become commonplace since Beethoven; increasingly, the purpose of this form within Romantic music was to dramatize struggle, almost always concluding with the banishment of one motif (the negative) by another (the positive). Bruckner purposefully rejects such a duality, choosing instead to “vanish” the illusion of absolute difference within the dialectics of his symphonies.
To return, again, to the distinction between textual and musical studies and the “role” of Bruckner in the Academy, I would suggest that such an experience - the recognition that “self” and “other” represent different moments within an undifferentiated self-consciousness of the subject - is crucial (even, I would dare say, “timeless” and “universal”) to higher education. This is not to say that historicizing and plurality are not also crucial - indeed, one of Horton’s most compelling points is that contextualizing Bruckner’s works is essential to understanding what might be “timeless” and “universal” to a particular culture. Just as the philosophy of Jacques Derrida has illustrated the immanent moments of deconstruction within any discourse, so too does Bruckner illustrate the gesture toward inclusiveness and the infinite (in the best sense of both words).12 In this manner, his musical discourse shares a philosophical project with the novels of Leo Tolstoy, written contemporaneously with Bruckner’s symphonies .13 Much like Count Pierre Bezukhov’s experiences of War and Peace, Bruckner’s music compels the attentive listener (or reader) to reconsider structural distinctions between “self” and “other.” Pierre’s journey is a social as well as a spiritual one, moving from bastard son to wealthy landowner, from cultural elite to social reformer, from cuckolded husband to loving spouse, from dissolute atheist to dedicated Masonite and, finally, to abstract spiritualist and philosopher. War and Peace, like the Second Symphony, links the secular and the spiritual, the military and the civilian, the conservative and the transgressive, the cyclical and the teleological. But what they share most dramatically is a suspicion of conventional notions of power - along with a desire to transcend such notions. As Tolstoy writes:
Freedom is the thing examined. Necessity is the examiner. Freedom is the content. Necessity is the form. … Only by uniting them do we get a clear conception of the life of man…All knowledge is but the bringing of the essence of life under the laws of reason.14
12 Although this is a discussion for a different time, I would posit Dmitri Shostakovich (whose works I enjoy as much as Bruckner’s but in a very different manner and for very different reasons) as a musicological and philosophical counterpoint to Bruckner (just as Derrida is a counterpoint to Hegel, but equally as important). Shostakovich, to me, is the quintessential musical ironist, endlessly deconstructing the form and function of music and embedding counter- and double- discourses within its content. Thus, Shostakovich is a devout historicist, thoroughly immanent as opposed to transcendent in his orientation to the world. Even his late works, often branded the “pure” Shostakovich, receive their power and compelling voice from the composer’s struggle with and within the secular world. 13 On this point, I differ greatly with the conductors and musicologists (among them the excellent Georg Tintner) who draw parallels between Bruckner and Doestoevsky. Unquestionably, Doestoevsky was a writer of profound faith and ethicism, but his frequently despairing view of the world is quite at odds with Bruckner’s ultimately celebratory perspective (at least as a symphonist). 14 Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (Penguin, 1957), p. 1443. 30
The conceptual similarities are striking; only the methodology by which the two projects proceed, mirroring the distinction between text and sound, is different. For where Tolstoy constructs an explanatory dialectic “interpreting” the epic tale preceding it, Bruckner fuses the dialectic with the listening experience itself. Thus, whereas a text always implies a distinction between the act of reading and the act of interpretation (a “problem” which Tolstoy attempts to address by explicitly stating, in the epilogue, what he “meant” by his novel), Bruckner’s symphonies provide a phenomenological experience that, in Hegel’s terms, “vanishes” the space between the two. To hear Bruckner’s Second is, simultaneously, to experience self-consciousness. In our schools, in our world, this is an experience which we surely must encounter more frequently—indeed, one which we can never encounter enough.
Coda. This summer, my wife and I visited Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony, with our eight year old son - the very same age when my own parents brought me to my first “live” concert. My wife ingeniously provided our son with paper and crayons, asking him to depict, visually, what he was experiencing through the music. Due in no small part to Joshua Bell’s breathtaking performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto (and Bernard Haitink’s magisterial conducting), he produced some particularly evocative pictures, including a man imprisoned in a castle (in response to the first movement) and combat between medieval knights (in response to the third). I like to think that his own nascent dialectic - connecting music to narrative to image, each one transforming and enriching the other - is one which Bruckner would smile upon, and one we should ardently encourage.
My special thanks to Ken Ward for his kind invitation to address a topic so far from my general field yet so important to my life.
Raymond Rice is Associate Professor of English at University of Maine at Presque Isle.
A BRUCKNER WEEKEND Friday 20th - Sunday 22nd April 2007 Chantmarle Manor, near Dorchester The House Chantmarle Manor is a beautiful 13th century building nestled in the valley of the River Frome in Dorset. The house is surrounded by immaculately kept private terraced gardens with fountains, a moat, summerhouse and two ponds secluded in the woods. From the well appointed rooms there are splendid views of the Dorset countryside. The Weekend Bruckner was a deeply devout man, and it is not by chance that his works have been compared to cathedrals in their scale and grandeur, and in their aspiration towards the sublime. These aspects of the man and his music, including its range and nature, will be explored during our weekend, which will place particular emphasis on three great symphonies, 4, 6 & 8, and the Te Deum, with illustrations on excellent hi-fi equipment. The weekend is designed as an informal ‘house party’. Guests need only the ability to enjoy music, so no technical knowledge will be required. Arts in Residence offers an excellent cuisine including wine with dinner. The event will end with afternoon tea on Sunday, but for those wishing to depart on Monday, it will be possible to stay for an extra night at a special rate. Terry Barfoot writes widely on music for Britain’s leading journals, orchestras, festivals and record companies. He lectures at South Downs College, at Oxford and other universities, and is Publications Consultant to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Price: £265.00 per person (twin/double rooms), £280.00 (single rooms) to include all meals, wine, beverages, course fees and accommodation. Booking: Arts in Residence, 25, Mulberry Lane, Cosham, Portsmouth, PO6 2QU. £50.00 per person deposit with booking. (Cheques payable to Arts in Residence.) Enquiries: 02392 383356 Email: [email protected] www.artsinresidence.co.uk
By unfortunate coincidence, Terry Barfoot organised the above weekend and we arranged The Bruckner Journal Readers Conference on the same date. Organisation had gone too far with each event when this clash became apparent for it to be possible for either party to make changes. We are very sorry that readers who’d like to attend both these special occasions are now obliged to make a very difficult choice. 31
Bruckner scores: secular vocal music
This is the fifth part* of an endeavour to extend Arthur D. Walker’s list of published scores of Bruckner’s works and cover the composer’s entire output. Abbreviations: ABSW = Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke: ‘new’ Complete Edition, ed. Leopold Nowak et al. Vienna, 1951 - . G-A = August Göllerich and Max Auer. Anton Bruckner. Ein Lebens- und Schaffensbild. 4 volumes in 9 parts. Regensburg, 1922-37; reprinted 1974, including supplementary volume containing corrections and additions.
Der Abendhimmel WAB 55: first setting for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Comp. Linz, January 1862.
G-A III/2, 1930, pp. 18-20. ABSW XXIII/2 (Weltliche Chorwerke, ed. Angela Pachovsky and Anton Reinthaler), Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, Vienna, 2001, pp. 51-3.
Der Abendhimmel WAB 56: second setting for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed Linz, 6 December 1866.
Doblinger (D.2784), Vienna, 1902. No. 2 of Zwei Männerchöre. Universal Edition (U.E.2918), Vienna. No. 2 of Zwei Männerchöre. Eulenburg, Zürich. No. 798 in Deutsche Eiche series. Fritz Spies, Gevelsberg. In Beliebte Männerchöre series. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 75-6.
Abendzauber WAB 57: for tenor / baritone soloist, three distant female voices, four-part male voice choir and four horns. Composed Vienna, 13 January 1878.
Universal Edition (U.E.2914), Vienna, 1911. Edited and with foreword by Victor Keldorfer. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 125-34.
Am Grabe (‘Brüder, trocknet eure Zähren’) WAB 2. Same text as Vor Arneths Grabe WAB 53. For four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed Linz, February 1861.
Friedrich Eckstein, Erinnerungen an Anton Bruckner, Vienna: Universal Edition (U.E. 7459), Vienna, 1923. Universal Edition (U.E.4984), Vienna, 1924. Edited and with foreword by Josef V. Wöss. Robitschek (A.R.7182), Vienna, 1954. Arranged Louis Dité for male-voice choir with accompaniment for three trombones or organ or harmonium. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 47-8.
An dem Feste (Tafellied) WAB 59: for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed Kronstorf, 1843.
G-A I, 1922, pp. 229-39. Anton Böhm (7438), Augsburg-Vienna, 1930. Arr. for mixed voices (with new text) by A. Zehelein. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 1-2.
Des Dankes Wort sei mir vergönnt WAB 62 for tenor and bass soloists and five-part male voice choir. Composed St. Florian, probably between 1845 and 1849 and certainly not later than 1855.
ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 37-43.
Das deutsche Lied (Der deutsche Gesang) WAB 63: for four-part male voice choir and brass (four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and bass tuba). Composed Vienna, 29 April 1892.
Universal Edition (U.E.3300), Vienna, 1911. Edited and with foreword by Victor Keldorfer. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 158-71.
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Das Frauenherz, die Mannesbrust (Motto for Liedertafel ‘Frohsinn’ in Linz) WAB 95/1: for four-part mixed choir. Composed Linz, not later than 1868.
G-A III/2, 1930, p. 158. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, p. 93.
Des Höchsten Preis (Motto for Sierning Liedertafel) WAB 95/2: for four-part male voice choir. Composed Linz, not later than 1868.
G-A III/2, 1930, p. 159 ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, p. 92.
Du bist wie eine Blume WAB 64: for mixed vocal quartet a cappella. Composed Linz, 5 December 1861.
G-A III/2, 1930. Facsimile of score, p. 193. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 49-50.
Das edle Herz WAB 65: first setting for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed St. Florian, c.1851.
G-A II/2, 1928, pp. 111-13. Robitschek (A.R.7183), Vienna, 1954. Edited Louis Dité. ABSW XXIII/2,2001, pp. 21-3.
Das edle Herz WAB 66: second setting for four-part mixed voice choir a cappella. Comp. Linz, December 1857.
G-A III/2, 1930, pp. 13-17. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 44-6.
Festlied (Freudig laßt das Lied erschallen) WAB 67: for four-part male voice choir a cappella.
Anton Böhm (6962), Augsburg-Vienna, 1928. Transposed version of An dem Feste (Tafellied) WAB 59.
Freier Sinn und froher Mut (Motto for the Liederkranz Gesangverein in Grein) WAB 147: for four-part male-voice choir a cappella. Composed Vienna, 21 March 1874.
Feichtingers Erben, Linz, 1905. No. 32 of Wahl- und Sängersprüche. Gesammelt von der Liedertafel ‘Frohsinn’ Linz. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, p. 108.
Frühlingslied (Leise zieht durch mein Gemüt) WAB 68: for voice and piano. Comp. St. Florian, June 1851.
G-A II/1, 1928, p.42. Facsimile of original. G-A II/2, 1928, pp. 44-6. ABSW XXIII/1 (Lieder für Gesang und Klavier, ed. Angela Pachovsky), Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, Vienna, 1997, pp. 1-2.
Die Geburt WAB 69: for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed St. Florian , 1852.
G-A II/2, 1928, pp. 147-50. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 24-5.
Herbstkummer WAB 72: for voice (tenor) and piano. Composed Linz, April 1864.
G-A III/2, 1930, pp. 151-7. ABSW XXIII/1, 1997, pp. 12-17.
Herbstlied WAB 73: for two soprano soloists, four-part male voice choir and piano. Comp. Linz,19 March 1864.
Universal Edition (U.E.3290), Vienna, 1911. Edited and with foreword by Victor Keldorfer. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 54-61. 33
Das hohe Lied WAB 74: First version for two tenor and one baritone soloists, four-eight part male voice choir a cappella. Composed Vienna, December 1876.
ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 109-16.
Second version for two tenor and one baritone soloists, four-eight part male voice choir, four horns, three tromhones, tuba, two violas, two cellos and bass. Vienna, 1879?
ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, 174-86.
Arrangement of second version by Hans Wagner for tenor soloist, four-eight part male voice choir, four horns, three trombones, tuba, two violas, two cellos and bass.
Doblinger (D.2639), Vienna, 1902. Edited and with foreword by Hans Wagner.
Im April WAB 75: for voice and piano. Composed Linz, before 18 September 1865.
Doblinger (D.2248), Vienna, 1898. ABSW XXIII/1, 1997, pp. 23-7.
Laßt Jubeltöne laut erklingen WAB 76: for four-part male voice choir and wind (two horns, two trumpets, four trombones). Composed St. Florian, 1854?
G-A III/2, 1930, pp. 161-79. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 29-36.
Der Lehrerstand WAB 77: for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed St. Florian, c.1847.
G-A II/2, 1928, pp. 16-22. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 8-16.
Das Lied vom deutschen Vaterland WAB 78: for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed St. Florian,c.1845.
G-A II/2, 1928, pp. 14-15. Eulenburg, Zürich. No. 920 in Deustche Eiche series. ABSW XXIII/2, pp. 3-4.
Mein Herz und deine Stimme WAB 79: for voice and piano. Composed Linz, not later than 1868.
G-A III/2, 1930, pp. 144-50. ABSW XXIII/1, 1997, pp. 18-22.
Mitternacht WAB 80: for tenor soloist, four-part male voice choir and piano. Composed Vienna, Nov. 1869.
Doblinger (D.2861), Vienna, 1903. Eulenburg (E.E.4701), Zürich. No. 800 in Deutsche Eiche series. Fritz Spies, Gevelsberg. In Beliebte Männerchöre series. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 95-107.
2 Motti WAB 148 (1) Motto, Im Wort und Liede wahr und treu; (2) Begrüßung, Wir alle, jung und alt: for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed 28 October 1869.
Zeitschrift für Musik 106 (1939), p. 256. Facsimile of original. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 94-5. Nachruf WAB 81: for four-part male voice choir and organ. Composed Vienna, 19 October 1877.
ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 117-20.
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O könnt’ ich dich beglücken (Vaterlandslied) WAB 92: for tenor and baritone soloists and four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed Linz, 1866.
Doblinger (D.2784), Vienna, 1902. No. 1 of Zwei Männerchöre. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 77-89.
Sängerbund WAB 82: for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed Vienna, 3 February 1882.
Universal Edition (U.E.3296), Vienna, 1911. Edited by Victor Keldorfer. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 140-44.
2 Sängersprüche (Mottos for Eferding Liedertafel) WAB 83: (1) Ein jubelnd Hoch (2) Lebt wohl, ihr Sängesbrüder. For four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed St. Florian 1851.
G-A II/2, 1928, pp. 145-6. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, p. 20.
Ständchen WAB 84: for tenor soloist and male voice quartet with humming voices a cappella. Composed St. Florian, c.1846.
G-A II/2, 1928, pp. 61-64. Facsimile of original autograph. Robitschek (A.R.7178), Vienna, 1954. Edited by Louis Dité. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 5-7.
Sternschnuppen WAB 85: for male voice quartet a cappella. Composed St. Florian, c.1848.
G-A II/2, 1928, pp. 94-6. Eulenburg, Zürich. No. 921 in Deutsche Eiche series. Robitschek (A.R.7179), Vienna, 1954. Edited by Louis Dité. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 17-19.
Tafellied WAB 86: for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed Kronstorf 1843. Revised version of An dem Feste, with new words. Vienna, 1893.
ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 172-3.
Träumen und Wachen WAB 87: for tenor soloist and four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed Vienna, 18 December 1890.
Theodor Rättig (T.R.223), Vienna, 1891. Eulenburg, Zürich. No. 799 in Deutsche Eiche series. Fritz Spies, Gevelsberg. In Beliebte Männerchöre series. Adolf Robitschek (A.R. 5782), Vienna, 1954. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 154-7.
Trauungschor (Trauungslied) WAB 49: for solo quartet, four-part male voice choir and organ. Composed Linz, 8 January 1865.
G-A III/2, 1930, pp. 219-24. Facsimile of autograph. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, 70-4.
Trösterin Musik WAB 88: for four-part male voice choir and organ. Composed Vienna, 19 October 1877. Same music as Nachruf WAB 81, but set to new words.
Universal Edition (U.E.3294), Vienna, 1911. Edited and with foreword by Victor Keldorfer. Eulenburg, Zürich. No. 812 in Deutzche Eiche series. Fritz Spies, Gevelsberg. In Beliebte Männerchöre series. Adolf Robitschek, Vienna, 1954. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 121-4.
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Um Mitternacht WAB 89: first setting for alto soloist, four-part male voice choir and piano. Composed Linz, 12 April 1864.
Universal Edition (U.E.3292), Vienna, 1911. Edited and with foreword by Victor Keldorfer. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 62-9.
Um Mitternacht WAB 90: second setting for tenor soloist and four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed Vienna, 11 February 1886.
Straßburger Sängerhaus (Sammlung bisher ungedruckter musikalischer und poetischer Blätter in autographischer Darstellung dem Straßburger Männergesangverein gewidmet). Straßburg, Selbstverlag des Straßburger Männergesangvereines, 1886. Facsimile and score. Universal Edition (U.E. 2927), Vienna, 1911. Edited and with foreword by Victor Keldorfer. Fritz Spies, Gevelsberg. In Beliebte Männerchöre series. Adolf Robitschek (A.R.5780), Vienna, 1954. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, 148-53.
Vaterländisch Weinlied WAB 91: for four-part male-voice choir a cappella. Composed Linz, November 1866.
Emil Berté & Cie (E.B.& Cie 53), Vienna, 1892. No. 5 in Wiener Componistenalbum, p. 18. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 90-1.
Volkslied WAB 94: composed Vienna 1882. First version for four-part male voice choir a cappella
G-A III/2, 1930, pp. 191-2. Facsimile of original. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 145-7.
Second version for voice and piano
ABSW XXIII/1, 1997, pp. 28-9.
Vor Arneths Grab WAB 53: for four-part male voice choir and three trombones. Composed St Florian, March 1853. Same text as Am Grabe WAB 2 (1861), but a fourth verse added.
G-A II/2, 1928, pp. 184-8. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 26-8.
Wie bist du, Frühling, gut und treu (from Amaranths Waldeslieder WAB 58); for voice and piano. Composed Linz, 1856.
Die Musik I / 17 (1902), supplement. Edited by Max Marschalk G-A III/2, 1930, pp. 184-8. Facsimile of autograph. ABSW XXIII/1, 1997, pp. 3-11.
Zur Vermählungsfeier WAB 54: for four-part male voice choir a cappella. Composed 27 November 1878.
Jahrbuch des Stiftes Klosterneuburg III (1910), p. 133. Universal Edition (U.E.4980), Vienna, 1921. Zur Vermählungsfeier - Ave regina coelorum, edited and with foreword with Josef V. Wöss, no. 8 in the Kirchenmusikalische Publikationen der Schola Austriaca series. ABSW XXIII/2, 2001, pp. 135-9.
© Crawford Howie November 2004 ______*By oversight the section of this list Bruckner Scores: Instrumental Music, which was first published as the first part of the extension of Arthur Walker’s list in Volume 9, no.2, was duplicated in Volume 10, no. 2, identified there as the fourth part of the list. 36
Letters to the editor: from Ian Beresford Gleaves
Ken Ward, in his otherwise excellent review of the performance of the Sixth symphony at the Bridgwater Hall in Manchester (and I will certainly look out for the broadcast this autumn) is in error when he states that the key of F minor occurs twice in the Coda of the last movement. What looks like F minor in the score at bars 371-384 and again during 395-399 is actually the dominant of B Flat minor, which key is an admirable and effective foil to the A major (only a semitone away) which soon ends the symphony. Try playing bars 399 et seq. in a triumphant B Flat major (which the preceding dominant suggests) instead of the A major supplied by Bruckner, and it will be seen at once how strikingly effective is the full force of A major when it comes (“that A major sun is high in the sky” - Robert Simpson). In other words, the deliberate side-stepping of A major by the dominant of B Flat minor at these points makes its ultimate assertion the more positive. And A major, I am reminded, is the main key of Lohengrin (“aus Glanz und Wonne komm ich her!” - Lohe=flame). And I am also reminded of Prince Hal’s lines in King Henry IV Part One (Act1, sc. 2)
Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That, when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at…
Bruckner’s B Flat minor (dominant of) are the “base contagious clouds”, and his A major is the sun. Stephen Johnson’s comparison with the radiantly sunny A major world of Beethoven’s Seventh was wholly apt.
Two other points occur to me while considering this passage: 1) The suggestion of B Flat minor at bars 371-84 and 395-9 are a harking back to the slow movement, whose initial oboe melody, beginning in bar 5, is used prominently in the last movement. 2) There is an arguably good case for the omission in performance of bars 371-84, as indicated in some scores, as the recurrence of the B Flat minor/A major process/equation in 395-9 (cooking your sausages twice over, so to speak) could be said to weaken the total effect. It would be interesting to compare different performances from this point of view.
* * * * * from Aart van der Wal, www.audio-muziek.nl
I felt very disappointed after having read Peter Jan Marthé’s contribution to the July issue of The Bruckner Journal, and I didn't feel any better after your editorial ‘Musicology and Mysticism’.
Marthé’s statement that ‘time is ripe for Bruckner to reveal himself from a side not known up to now’, does not at all reconcile the tremendous scholarly work done already, and in great detail, and even worse, as if this does not even exist. His point of view is a prime example of self-indulgence and moreover it is scientifically worthless. He sounds like he had invented the wheel, but he could not do better than – like any Brucknerian – start with studying Bruckner’s own autographs (a facsimile edition to be obtained from Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag in Vienna), and take it from there, followed by the extensive documentation that is already handsomely available of the reconstruction/completion of the finale by highly qualified predecessors knowing this very complicated kind of ‘business’. He will then quickly see that there are no codes to crack. No mystifications please!
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I do not pretend to be an expert on Bruckner’s life and his music, but at least I have tried to follow the reconstruction/completion work done by musicologists like William Carragan, Nicola Samale, Giuseppe Mazzuca, Benjamin Gunnar-Cohrs, John Alan Phillips, and others.
It should also be noted that the reconstruction/completion work must be accompanied by detailed annotations, the kind of ‘justification’ that helps the musical world to comprehend and evaluate the entire process. It is really of no use to pretend that something can be evaluated only by ear. For this reason, I asked Mr. William Carragan to provide me with a position paper that clearly outlines his work on the finale. Musicology is not hobbyism but science.
Aart van der Wal’s article, Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D minor WAB 109 - The unfinished Finale can be found on John Berky’s Bruckner Symphony Versions Discography listing for the Finale of the 9th Symphony, at www.abruckner.com The same article, but with all relevant attachments, can be found at www.audio-muziek.nl/componisten/bruckner_symphony_9_finale.pdf
* * * * * from Ian Gray I live up in Whitley bay and suppose that, Scotland apart, I must by one of the Northernmost readers! I am on holiday at the moment and have spent a very pleasant morning sitting in the warm sunshine and re-reading my July Journal.
I have always been shy to go into print, as I am most definitely an amateur! However I felt compelled to let you know about the first performance of a Bruckner symphony in the Sage Gateshead. On 8th June the Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra under Mario Venzago played the 7th.The sound was superb. The wonderful acoustic enabled every detail to come through and coped effortlessly with the climaxes. What struck me was how Venzago made the first and last movements sing with a wonderful spontaneity. A very lyrical Bruckner !
Thomas Zehetmair`s Quartet play the String Quartet 29/4/07 so that is one most definitely for my diary.
Having just read David Bate`s account of his introduction to Bruckner, it struck me that my Bruckner Intro was also via Jochum! I must have been around 15 (1968!!) and had recently attended my first concert (Dvorak 6 Brno Phil ) and was soaking up music like a sponge. A store in Newcastle used to have a stand with Classics for Pleasure and the DG budget label Heliodor.The first Heliodor I bought was Bartok Concerto for Orch and Hindemith Mathis de Mahler Symphony, Fricsay. The second was THE 9th! Jochum/Bavarian Sym Orch The mysterious opening grabbed me by the throat and changed my life! I have been a devoted Brucknerian ever since and my highlight must be when I heard Barenbiom conduct the 9th with the VPO in the Musikverein Vienna. Quite simply glorious!
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Cathedral Music - The Bruckner Project - Minnesota Raymond Cox writes to say “Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra are to perform all of Bruckner's Symphonies, except the F minor, in Minneapolis, in Orchestra Hall, the Cathedral of St Paul and the College of St Benedict!!. Three locations and performances each. Is this a first? (At last somebody else realises that a sacred building is the ideal place for Bruckner.)” The first set of three concerts couple Gorecki’s symphony no. 3, with Bruckner Symphony in D minor, Die Nullte, on 2nd, 3rd and 5th November, 2006 The cycle will take place over several years. Osmo Vänskä says he hopes some listeners will go both the church and the concert hall performances so as to be able to compare how Bruckner sounds in these different environments. 38
UK Concerts International Concert Selection Less-often performed works: 26 Oct.19:45 Holy Trinity, Sloane Square, London Stravinsky - Mass Requiem Mozart - Serenade No 12 in C minor, K388 21 Feb 19:00 : Koncertna sien SF, Bratislava Bruckner - Mass No 2 in E minor Hindemith - Funeral Music London Concert Choir, Counterpoint, period Bruckner - Requiem in D minor instrumental ensemble /Mark Forkgen Symfonicky orchester Konzervatoria v Bratislave 020 7937 7540 (amateur orchestra) / J. Karaba
4 Nov.19:30 Kingston Parish Church, Kingston Mass No. 3 upon Thames 4 Mar. 17:00 Concertgebouw, Brugge, Bruckner - Mass No 2 in E minor 6 Mar. 20:15 Grote Zaal, Vredenburg, Utrecht Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms 7 Mar. 20:00 Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels Kingston Choral Society 8 Mar. 20:15 Concertgebouw, Amsterdam Thames Sinfonia 020 8390 5689 Brahms - Alto Rhapsody, op.53 Brahms - Schicksalslied, op.54 18 Nov.19:30 Fairfield Concert Hall, Croydon Bruckner - Mass No.3 in F minor Bruckner - Te Deum in C Orchestre des Champs Elysées / Herreweghe Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music Karl Jenkins - The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace Symphony No. 1 Croydon Philharmonic Choir 26 Nov. 14.30, Philharmonie, Haarlem, NL Wimbledon Choral Society / Michael Ashcroft & Schumann - Faust Overture David Gibson 020 8688 9291 Schumann - Konzertstück in F major Bruckner - Symphony No.1 in C minor 8/9 Dec.19:00 Royal College of Music, Holland Symfonia / Goodman, R Prince Consort Road, London Bruckner - Symphony no 7 in E major Symphony in D minor, ‘Die Nullte’ The RCM Symphony Orchestra / Haitink 2 Nov 19:30, 3 Nov 20:00 Cathedral of Saint Paul, 020 7591 4314 Minneapolis, US Gorecki - Symphony No.3 26 Jan Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Bruckner - Symphony in D minor, ‘Die Nullte’ 27 Jan Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, at 19:30 Minnesota Orch./ Vänskä Wagner - Siegfried Idyll Bruckner - Symphony No.3 in D minor (1889) 11 Nov. Johanniskirche, Saalfeld, Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Weller 17 Nov. Stadtkirche, Rudolstadt - 19:30 0131 228 1155 Parker - Organ Concerto, op.55 Bruckner - Symphony in D minor, ‘Die Nullte’ 10 Feb, 19:30 Barbican Hall, London Stanford - Konzertstück für Orgel und Orchester Schubert - Symphony No.3 Thüringer Symph. Saalfeld-Rudolstadt / Weder Bruckner - Symphony No.3 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Jansons Symphony No 2 020 7638 8891 7 Nov 20:00, Philharmonie, Berlin on tour to: Debussy - Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien 12 Feb, 20:00 Paleis voor Schone Kunsten Brussels Schönberg - Violin Concerto, op.36 16 Feb, 20:00 Auditorio Giovanni Agnelli, Torino Bruckner - Symphony No.2 in C minor 18 Feb, 19:30 Großer Saal, Musikverein, Vienna Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Nagano
20/21 Feb, 19:30 Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK 29/30 Nov 20:00 Theater am Marientor, Duisburg Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No.2 op.44 Schubert - Symphony No.8 "Unfinished" Bruckner - Symphony No.4 Bruckner -Symphony No.2 City of Birmingham SO / Jaap van Zweden Duisburger Philharmoniker / Netopil 0121-780 3333 Symphony No. 3 (2nd version - 1877) 22 Feb. 19:30, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK 2 Mar 20:00, 4 Mar 19:00, Wagner - Wesendonck Lieder Oberkirche Sankt Nikolai, Cottbus Bruckner - Symphony No.9 in D minor Gabrieli - Sonata Pian’ e Forte Hallé Orchestra / Cristian Mandeal Vaughan Williams - Flos Campi 0161 907 9000 Bruckner - Symphony No.3 1877 Philharmonisches Orchester der Staatstheaters Cottbus / Judith Kubitz 39
String Quintet Christoph Eschenbach 1 Feb, 20:00 Konzerthaus, Berlin 17,18,20 Jan, 20:00, 19 Jan, 14:00 Verizon Hall, Mozart - String Quintet, Bb major, K 174 Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Bruckner - String Quintet Philadelphia, 23 Jan 20:00 Carnegie Hall, NY vns: M. Erxleben, Q de Roos; vlas: B. Rivinius, Mahler - Kindertotenlieder K. Plagens; cello: S.Giglberger Bruckner - Symphony No.9 in D minor Philadelphia Orchestra Psalm 150 9 Dec 20:00 Silva Concert Hall, Hult Center for the Bernard Haitink Performing Arts, Eugene 27/28 Feb, 1 Mar 19:30 Tonhalle, Zürich Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music 3 Mar 19:30 Kultur- und Kongresszentrum, Luzern Bruckner - Psalm 150 Bruckner - Symphony No.8 in C minor 1890 Beethoven - Symphony No.9 Tonhalle-Orchester Eugene SO / Guerrero Daniel Harding 26 Jan 19:30 Berwaldhallen, Stockholm Rihm - In-Schrift Selected Bruckner Conductors: Bruckner - Symphony No.5 Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester Daniel Barenboim 15 Feb, 19:30 Musikverein, Vienna Manfred Honeck 27 Feb, 22:30 Auditorio Nacional, Madrid 13/14 Dec. 19:30 Dvorakova sin, Prague 2 March, 20:00 Carnegie Hall, New York Bruckner - Symphony No.8 Schubert - Symphony No.5 Czech Philharmonic Bruckner - Symphony No.7 Wiener Philharmoniker Zubin Mehta 11/13 Jan 19:30/20:00 Avery Fisher Hall, NY Blomstedt Elgar - Cello Concerto 23/24 Nov. 20:00 Leipzig Gewandhaus Bruckner - Symphony No.7 Stravinsky - Concerto for Pno + Wind Instruments New York Philharmonic Bruckner - Symphony No.7 Gewandhausorchester; pf. P Serkin. Stefan Sanderling 9/10 Feb 20:00, 11 Feb 19:30, Carol Morsani Hall, 10/12 Jan 19:00 Johanneksenkirkko, HelsinkiI Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Tampa Bach - Cantata No.82, "Ich habe genug" Bruckner - Symphony No.8 Bruckner - Symphony No.5 Florida Orch. Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra Stanislaw Skrowaczewski 20 Jan 15:00 Berwaldhallen, Stockholm 24/25 Jan. 19:30, 26 Jan 20:00 Tonhalle, Zürich, Bruckner - Symphony No.7 Mozart - Sinfonia concertante K 364 Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra Bruckner - Symphony No.3 1889 Tonhalle-Orchester 25/26 Jan.19:30 : Dvorakova sin, Prague Schubert - Symphony No.3 Christian Thielemann Bruckner - Symphony No.5 13 Nov. Philharmonie, Berlin; 14 Nov. Czech Philharmonic Festspielhaus, Baden-Baden; 17 Nov. Het Paleis voor Schone Kunsten van Brussel; 18 Nov. Theatre Dennis Russell Davies des Champs-Elysées, Paris - all at 20:00 16 Nov. Brucknerhaus, Linz - both at 19:30 Pfitzner - Palestrina: Preludes to Acts 1, 2 + 3 11 Nov. Musikverein, Vienna Bruckner - Symphony No.7 Mozart - Symphony No.36 "Linz" Münchner Philharmoniker Bruckner - Symphony No.4 (1874) Bruckner Orchester Linz 5 Jan, 20:00, 6/7 Jan, 19:00, Philharmonie, Gasteig, München Bruckner - Symphony No.8 24/25 Nov. 19:30, 26 Nov. 11:30 Auditorio Münchner Philharmoniker Nacional de Musica, Madrid Wagner - Faust Overture Simone Young Bruckner - Symphony No.8 in C minor 11 Nov.19:30, 12 Nov. 11:00 Kulturpalast, Dresden Orquesta Nacional de Espana Britten - Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings Bruckner - Symphony No.9 Dresdner Philharmonie 40
A Performance of the Ninth, with a new revised version of the Finale as completed by William Carragan
On 28th September 2006, the Tokyo New City Orchestra, conducted by Akira Naito, performed Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, with a new revised version (September 2006) of the completed Finale by William Carragan. The revisions involve the instrumentation of the fugue, and the structure and content of the end of the second theme group and the entire third theme group in the recapitulation. He has consulted John Phillips’s edition of the Finale fragments for the material of Bogen 32. Prof. Carragan explains that he has wanted to do a thorough overhaul of that passage for twenty years, but his work on the Second Symphony and other Bruckner projects had given no time for work on the Ninth. ‘But when this opportunity arose, solutions came to me.’
The performance will also include one of the discarded trios for the second movement. ‘Although it is anachronistic with a completed finale,’ Prof. Carragan comments, ‘we decided that it was an opportunity to hear it which should be taken.’
It is expected that a CD will be issued, which TBJ readers will be able to obtain via John Berky’s website, www.abruckner.com.
BRUCKNER JOURNAL READERS MEETING - NOV. 5TH
This meeting will be a concert presented in association with the Gustav Mahler Society UK, the Austrian Cultural Forum and the Austrian Embassy. It will take place in the residence of the Austrian Ambassador, Her Excellency Dr Gabriele Matzner-Holzer, 18 Belgrave Square, London SW1 on Sunday 5th November, at 2 pm for 2.30 pm
The pianists, Ranko Markovic and Marialena Fernandes will play the arrangement by Mahler and Krzyzanowski for four hands of Bruckner’s Third Symphony. Also in the concert will be Mozart’s Sonata in C major K521
The performance of the Bruckner Symphony will be introduced by Dr A Crawford Howie
Admittance is by invitation only and must be arranged in advance. At the time of going to print there were only a limited number of invitations remaining. There will be no admission without invitation. To obtain an invitation send your request to: Residence Tickets, GMS UK, 15 David Avenue, Wickford, Essex SS11 7BG.
To assist the GMS UK and The Bruckner Journal in their sponsorship of this event, a minimum donation is requested of £15. Cheques and POs should be made payable to GMS UK
A publication for those who love the music of Anton Bruckner - musicians, scholars and lay people
Subscriptions for 3 issues a calendar year are £10 UK, Europe 15 Euros or £10; Rest of the world $US25 or £12. Subscriptions, cash or cheque, to The Bruckner Journal, 4 Lulworth Close, Halesowen, B63 2UJ, UK. Subscription inquiries 01384 566383, or by email to [email protected] Back issues are also available from this address. Please inquire for prices. Please note: The Editorial email address is now changed to [email protected]